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My two roommates and I have all started small armies and we typically like to get a game in once a week. We tend to enjoy playing together and typically do three way games of annihilation. I'm curious though if anyone else has experience in playing games with three people and how they tend to do it. How do you usually do deployment and flanking rules? Any other special rules you adapt?

I have played one 3 way game, it was quite fun. We each had a deployment area, either a corner or an edge and you rolled a dice and 1-2 is so and so's area was where you appeared, 3-4 etc. That was how we overcame flanking issues. Othern than that the game itself was brutal. My two friends who I was gaming with were having a huge fight in the middle of the board and I had 2 Leman Russ popping shells, slaughtering loads on both sides!

The OC-D

I started out playing 3 way battle all the time. They are much more fun at small points numbers once you get to around 1500 they tend to get messy and one person can usually get killed off before they even get to go.

In the hardcover Main Rulebook, there was a special mission that had interesting 3 player rules. Haven't tried them yet but seems fun and cool way to do it. It was like different players would go first every turn, with a roll off, but if you had a 3 army CC going it was brutual.

I played a couple.

One scenario I think it was all our HQ's w/bodyguards in the center. It was that "deal gone bad" scenario. It was IG, Chaos, and my Tau. The deal went sour fast and our HQ's had to run back to their main lines. I don't remember too much, but I remember I had a slight edge thanks to my jetpack. JSJ and popping off shots at both HQ's tryiing to get back to my lines.

It was pretty messy, but really fun.

My two friends and I play 3-way matches almost every weekend. Usually 1850 points each. We play whatever scenario we roll for, but our deployment always consists of splitting the board into 6ths, and then we deploy on-off-on-off-on so that we are somewhat equidistant. The games tend to get really bloody, really quickly, but they are very fun. Depending on what mission we are playing, and how people go about attack each other, sometimes one player gets off easy and take the win while the other two duke it out.

One things for sure, make sure you are not playing in a completely serious manner. The rules are sometimes foggy if interpreted for 3 players simultaneously, and it is very very very easy for two players to slaughter the third. It takes sportsmanship to make it so that each army has a fair chance to win. Just remember that its a game and try to have as much fun as possible!

Also, we have recently decided that we will create a hexagonal table so that each army can deploy exactly equidistant from the others. That way it becomes more of a split front rather than a "attack one guy while moving away from the other".

Lastly, we played that "deal gone bad" scenario and it really doesnt work well. I found that the turn switch thing gets annoying since you go first, then like 4 turns later you get to go again. Creates LOOONG downtimes that equal boredom and non-fun.