So, I've mostly played DnD/Pathfinder as far as tabletop gaming goes, but I've started to grow more interested in miniature wargaming. Without too much thought toward ruleset or professionalism (any games I'd be playing would most likely be casual and with friends, not in any convention context), what's the best way to cheaply begin to amass a large collection of miniatures suitable for wargaming? Any general advice about this kind of thing?
Ebay is probably your best bet for buying large amounts of minis on the cheap. If you aren't concerned with specific minis, and/or don't care about the "Rare, Common, Uncommon" tags, you can get lots of DnD miniature commons for much cheaper than buying booster packs for.
Just type things like DND, D+D, minatures, common, lot, into the search bar and you'll get many options. I've done this just to fill out ranks of minions.
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So, I've mostly played DnD/Pathfinder as far as tabletop gaming goes, but I've started to grow more interested in miniature wargaming. Without too much thought toward ruleset or professionalism (any games I'd be playing would most likely be casual and with friends, not in any convention context), what's the best way to cheaply begin to amass a large collection of miniatures suitable for wargaming? Any general advice about this kind of thing?
*most* war games more or less break things out into races, if you're looking at warhammer - the warhammer fantasy has a starter from 2006 that is dwarves vs Goblins and one from this year that is high elves vs were-rats, I think each army is like 25 peices or so (the 2006 is $75 and the 2010 one is $99 MSRP but that's $2 a figure or so, not very bad at all.)
You don't necessarily need masses of miniatures, as there are lots of skirmish wargames available at very reasonable prices or for free. One of the best is Song of Blades and Heroes from Ganesha Games. Each warband only needs 6-8 models, and as there are no race restrictions, you can put together any models you like. If you got D&D prepaints it's even easier, you are pretty much ready to play!
EBay is your best bet; another option is if you are looking at Warhammer particularly, to go to a GW store and see if you can advertise (and/or see if someone else is advertising to sell).
How I got MY Warhammer 40K army is I worked for them--I painted other people's armies and they bought me the models I wanted in payment. If you enjoy painting/assembly maybe you can work out a similar deal.