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Noob here, me and some pals of mine are looking at the game, what would the best (or easest )3 armies to start and learn the game with?

Any, really. They all have their own complexities, benefits and drawbacks. You're not really going to find any easier to learn the game with.

The best way to learn the game without much complexity is after picking the faction you want to start with, start playing games but avoiding using units with a lot of special rules.

Infinity doesn't really work that way. Each faction has a pretty wide spectrum of stuff that it can do. They do have some unique quirks that can try to point out. This will be more a list of things that you might want to avoid than a full answer to your question though.

Combined Army and Aleph are the "elite factions" meaning that all their models, even the basic infantry grunts, cost quite a bit more (points wise, not actual money wise) than a comparable model from another force. They come with all the stats and nasty equipment to justify their increased points cost, but they may not be the best factions to start out with both because you will almost always be playing a model or two down and because they have a lot more nasty tricks, which means more special rules and equipment to remember. Take this with a big block of salt because I started with Combined Army since I liked their fluff, models, and playstyle.

Tohaa are just...different. They have a ton of special equipment that no other army in the game uses and they have lots of "fire teams". a group of models that move and fight together. Normally you can only have one per army and only in the "sectorial" lists ("theme lists" that have different model availability than the base faction). Not everybody wants to deal with fire teams right off because some people think the rules are complicated, which they kind of are since they break the regular structure of how the game works, and because they can be pretty overpowering for people who don't know how to counter them.

So leaving out those three you have: Pan Oceanea, Yu Jing, Haqquislam, Nomads, and Aradnia. Any of these 5 would work just fine.

You'll notice different starters available to a faction. These are aimed for different sub factions. There is some changed availability and certain starters don't mesh particularly well with the general force. Picking the general starter would be the most advisable, until you figure out what you want to play.

If there is no preference I'd advise to avoid Alep and Combined. Those have easier time, once you start playing at higher points, otherwise you feel restrained. Unless you happen to love Preta models.

Tohaa are a bit tricky to learn (Triad rules but you can leave them out for first few games) but rather enjoyable once you get a grasp of the system.

Nomads and PanOceania will get re-sculpted starters in the near future. Worth to mention it.

Definitely agree with the above, if you can wait a month it might be worthwhile getting the new starter set, Operation Icestorm.

Otherwise go for 3 boxes of starter sets on the basis of whichever ones you like the miniatures for, think that's probably the best advice I can give!

Download the starter rules from Beasts of War, those allow you to experience the flavour of the game first, before downloading the full rules
(they are on this page, amongst other useful vids)
http://www.beastsofwar.com/?cat=99&tag=content-getting-started

How long is the average game ,Compared to war machine and 40k?

 Knight wrote:
You'll notice different starters available to a faction. These are aimed for different sub factions. There is some changed availability and certain starters don't mesh particularly well with the general force. Picking the general starter would be the most advisable, until you figure out what you want to play.

Not true. The newer Sectorial sets(Neoterra, Corregidor, Morat) are able to be fielded as Sectorial or Vanilla.

I understand*, however I honestly didn't want to go through all of the starters and list the different AVA they have in general force, such as Military Order and Shock Army.

I think Bakunin and Corregidor are both fieldable in the general army without going through any AVA. If someone wants to go through all the starters, go ahead. I think it's easier to focus on general force, if no preference is given. In case of preference, we can start to discuss the finer points.

*I also said certain starters.

To answer the question on game length. About 40 minutes, more, if we want to have a cold one.

Infinity games go incredibly fast compared to most other wargames I've seen. Something about the combination of combat being very lethal (even a basic infantry trooper with a rifle has a small but measurable chance to knock a wound off the giant robot tanksuits), the fact that the opponent gets to shoot back at you even when it's not their turn, and the weapon ranges typically giving you an effective kill zone of at least half the table. The casualties mount up pretty fast and you usually don't have too many models on he table to begin with.

~45 minutes for an average 300 point game (that's the "1850" of Infinity, kind of the standard baseline that people usually play unless they have a reason not to).

Note that time per game tends to vary enormously from group to group.

Tournaments generally run 1.5 hour rounds for 300pt games.

Yeah, when my brother and I are having a game, game length varies based on how much we end up shooting the gak over the game. 1-1.5 hours is normal if we're not chatty. 3 hours is normal if we haven't spoken in a while.

Same with my other friend that plays. If we're having lunch over the game and/or haven't seen each other in a while, 3 hours is normal. If we want to speed it up and chat less, we can squeeze 2 games in that time.

30 to 45 minutes give or take. It really depends on the opponent and the scenario.

Please tell me that doesn't include deployment...

I've had games last 20 minutes, I've had them last 2 hours.

Depends on the relative skill between players, the dice rolls and other factors.

The 20 minute game had me in retreat before my turn actually started. The remainder then died in MY first turn (I went second) - combination of bad choices and even worse dice rolls.

The 2 hour game I ended up my last turn putting a wound on ONE enemy Remote before being immobilised one by one (ADHL crits - starting with the engineer).
With my opponent's last order, he had HIS engineer use it's bot to REPAIR the one point I'd managed to take.
He'd already grabbed all the objectives in his turn since I couldn't stop him.