Hey /tg/, I wanna get into some Warhammer 40k, for painting mainly, but if I find a decent group locally I'd like to play some as well. I've only ever played/painted some LOTR models a while back etc.

tldr: What race would you recommend for a relative noob?
Also, I had my eye on orks, they seem pretty cool to paint and quite unorthodox in 40k, are they shit/awesome tier?