SH4 Newbie

I played SH3 Grey Wolves a lot during 2006 and was hooked but have not played for 10 months or so. Tried to play with fairly serious realism levels but never became an expert.
I am about to jump back in by buying SH4 and would welcome advice on a basic set of necessary or useful mods from the bewildering array appearing in this forum. I understand that patches up to 1.3 have been released and 1.4 is coming soon. I guess I should start by downloading JSGME? Is there any specific order in which patches, mods, JSGME should be installed?
Really looking forward to getting back into SH and would be grateful for any advice.
Cheers
KC