dont bother with plugins to start with, only look for them wen finding difficulties...
i learnt the basics of lightwave from
http://www.3dbuzz.com
it has plenty of starting video tutorials for geting used to the interface - but you have to register.
The only plugin i still use is an export tool.... iv tried the tool for converting low poly to high poly or other way but it still requires lots of tweaking (plugin for this is qemLOSS2 - alsoavailable is qemLOSS3)