I can't offer more about Warmachine than that you should take a look at Privateer Press' official forums as well as the subforum on this site, a little further down the list of subforums. There's probably going to be a lot of complaining but you should be able to temper it for your own purposes.
For general tabletop gaming, I suggest that you take a look at Reaper Miniature's range of Bones miniatures.
https://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/Bones
They are named after the weird white plastic that doesn't photograph very well so most figures look like they're poorly detailed when they really aren't. The whole deal with the material is that it's nice and springy so it handles being dropped much better than other materials and, perhaps most importantly, that it's incredibly cheap. If you want a griffon in metal it'll cost 28 dollars but if you want the exact same figure in Bones plastic it'll cost you 7 dollars. The line is unbeatable for monsters and you'll be able to amass critters and dragons for a fraction of the standard price.
Other than that, well, I guess Frostgrave is a currently popular skirmishing fantasy game that's about stealing treasure from each other and building up a band of people to get better at it.
For arts and crafts, check out the painting and project sections of this site or frankly any site related to miniatures wargaming. Be sure to check Youtube because there's both wargaming stuff as well as ordinary model building videos that show very nicely how to make mud, walls and whatever else you might think of. For terrain making, be sure to collect pieces of cardboard, clean plastic containers and other such pieces of junk. With some glue and paint they'll become anything you want them to be. Soon you'll be putting old electronics wiring, cork, fine chicken mesh and gravel on your Christmas wishlist.