Josh,
Greetings and a great holiday gift indeed!
Personally I have chosen and am getting a Badger 200 series bottom feed A/B. Next to the 350 I just went through it is the better of the basic single action A/Bs. Badger has the tendency to be user friendly and I have used that brand for about 20 years off and on.
Several needles are interchangable with various Badger A/Bs. Fine, Medium and Course. All have the advantage of being adaptable to the type of A/B they are specifically designed to fit. The 200 comes with a medium tip and this is standard on most air brushes. The diameter of a needle determines the paint pattern and this is also controled by the opening on each corresponding tip, the two have to match to get the right pattern. Usually the pattern on most work can go from 1/64th of an inch to close to 2 inches depending upon the amount you want on a model at which area. Everything else has to be ordered as extra components!
I am not familiar with what you are using for paint but I reccomend that you use acrylic water based as the clean up and mixing is very easy. Several good brands of paint are sold at Wal-mart and HobbyLobby as craft paints but these match almost every military color for all the war applications an come in glossy as well for WW II U.S. Navy aircraft. I have found that with little mixing of colors and a good color chart, the paint scemes of every country can be replicated with just a little practice and the paints come in 4 oz squeeze bottles and sell for under $.50 up to a little over $1, not bad considering the cost of brand matched colors.
If you need more advice on painting I can help, also about the needles not fitting all of the models, again this is most likely the way Paasche has designed the A/B. This is also true of Badger as nothing except the 2 oz. bottles and the air fittings will interchange from the 350 to the 200. I'm certain it is a marketing scheme to get consumers to upgrade. Something every company is doing now!
Best of luck to you and my advise is to find a good website (home for the product) to fully research your options prior to making any commitments. Also you will most likely find many, many people on this forum to assist you in any modeling area, they are all great!
johncpo, retired Navy but not retired modeler