Well that's informative. I'll check out r/miniswap now
BigGuyCIA's post is more than informative, but I wanna point out something that I wish someone told me when I was getting into this hobby. Chromevod mentioned it, but I wanna elaborate a bit more.
Anyway, the basic idea is this:
Start. Small.
And inform yourself before buying.
Basically, don't rush and buy a huge 150 euro box just because it has "Starter Set" or something written on it. That is a major investment of both money, time and willpower. It can be very arduous and overwhelming seeing this pile of plastic which has suddenly appeared in your house, which requires assembly and painting. Don't get me wrong, starter sets are usually pretty great and, believe it or not, affordable for the amount of stuff you're getting despite their price, but they can easily overwhelm a newbie and simply burn you out.
Feeling like you're Sisyphus instead of enjoying your hobby is not good. And it happens very often.
Buying a smaller one unit box is a lot safer bet. 5 Cadian models which Chrome suggested is a good start, or some models off of eBay. It's a common unit which you're bound to field if you end up building your army and playing, it's affordable and is good for learning and practicing - even if you screw it up, it's no biggie, those are easy to replace.
(That being said, I personally recommend starting by buying a new box of models. Not because buying from eBay is bad or anything, but because unpacking and sifting through that first box is always special, something you're going to remember for years to come.)
I'm not going to go into details about priming, assembling, painting etc. because some of that has already been covered, and the other part of it is something to worry about once you get actual models.
As far as informing yourself before buying goes, it pretty much means you'll want to browse GW's website and make a rough estimate of how much all of this is going to cost down the line. Some armies, namely horde armies (Imperial Guard, Orks, Tyranids), are very expensive simply because they require a lot of models to field properly. On top of it all, painting those models can be quite time consuming.
I'm not saying this in order to turn you away from Imperial Guard (I love that army, even though some of the infantry models are in a dire need of an update), I just want to make sure you understand that, even if you're getting your models from eBay, trading and what not, this is still going to cost. There's just no way around it. And some stuff is more expensive than the other.
But, if you're smart, patient and go through the whole thing step by step, it won't hurt. Investing 20-50 bucks several times during the year as you're slowly building up your army is far more affordable and far more rewarding than dropping 300 bucks in an instant for dozens upon dozens of yet-to-be-assembled plastic models which you'll feel like you're never going to finish painting.
So yeah, start small and learn steadily, step by step. You're going to learn a lot that way, most importantly whether this hobby is for you or not. If it's not, you'll be glad you've spent a small amount of cash. And if it is for you, well, nobody's stopping you from spending a lot more down the road.
But for now, don't rush.
@BigGuyCIA
Is that Primaris your work?
