It sounds a little bit like you are getting into skirmish gaming with rpg elements or some narrative laid over the top.
Maybe look up the old Savage World "Showdown" rules if they are still around.
I bought a lot of Dwarven Forge's original vinyl tile shortly after their Kickstarter delivered at a garage sale. They were very cheap. A guy's girlfriend was obviously making him sell them. I felt bad but I bought them. I gave them to a friend who was thinking of buy them and bought myself some MDF kits and early neoprene map mats instead and a dry erase treated Square and hex transparent overlay. They looked nice and my friend was very happy but they were unpainted and last I heard he was trying to come up with a nice assembly line system that got consistent results between batches. He hasn't brought them out since then so most of them are probably stored in an attic.
Yeah it's definitely that. But....
I figure DF will be a lifelong commitment. They're practically indestructible and I'll definitely use them if I buy them. All the new stuff from DF is made of their composite material that others have said are super strong, and they have magnetic inserts. Of course you're paying for that production.
Money is less of an issue for me (unless I go hog wild and start dropping thousands in - which I'm not going to do with my other hobbies needing supporting heh), but I do care about quality and longevity. These bad boys will get some use.
If I had a *significantly* cheaper option that didn't require my own precious time, that measured up in quality I'll definitely consider it..