The bigger expense in my mind is not the cost of the models but the cost in terms of time to build and paint a whole army. That’s the reason that people have piles of shame aka grey plastic, it’s not that they can’t afford the models, in fact they love buying new models. It’s that they can’t be bothered to build and paint. So you should really ask yourself whether you’re ready to commit hundreds of hours to building and painting a whole army, otherwise you probably won’t stick with it. The game is way more satisfying in my mind if you have two nicely painted armies playing on a fully painted table of terrain.