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I'm poor but I want to play 40k. what's the cheapest army available? I don't care if it sucks.

Depends on how big you plan it to be.

But, seriously, Space Marines are thanks to the AoBR starter set and their low numbers. They make an alright starting army, but are way over used

+ 1 for Space Marines,low model count,and with AoBr Marines,reasonably priced.

I would have to go with everyone else Space marines are cheapest, the two army's you should stay away from if you don't have enough are IG and Orks.

Yeah, SM are the best with AoBR. I had 2 buddies who went in on the box set so if you can find someone who wants to play orks, go in with him/her on that. it will give you a good starting army.

sprue necrons.. There made out of sprue!!! otherwise black reach box set a couple of times and you have smurf army..

SM are defiantly the cheapest official army and are probably the easiest to pick up as well.

Dark Eldar can be considered an option.

Because the codex are so out dated, you can ALWAYS find incredible deals on ebay.

If you have someone else that you can split black reach boxes with, buy a couple of those (from an online retailer like the war store for 20% off retail) and split them. You will then each have an army for about $60 each.
You can also find the individual parts of black reach boxes for cheap at places like this http://www.thewarstore.com/blackreach.html.

A buddy of mine said he would sell me an 1850 squat army for $400 or an 1850 wraith guard army for $200. What do you guys think?

Go for the wraithguard army. The wraithguard alone in an army like that are probably worth 200 dollars. You can then sell them piecemeal on ebay and buy the army of your choice.

Agreed with Agustus on that one.
Or like stated SM. They are pretty damn good, easy to learn and can kick alot of booty. Also if you wanted to play just small skirmish sized games they are even cheaper. In a game of 500pts SM are pretty hard.