I would suggest the following:
A lead wipe-away cloth to clean the cylinder face.
Brass, (not stainless) chamber cleaning brushes. These look like regular bore brushes, but are stiffer and a little larger. These can be found at Brownell's. If you don't want to get these, get several 40 cal bore brushes. Needed if you shoot lead bullets.
Make a brass scraper to clean around the rear of the barrel. This looks just like a small brass screwdriver blade. You only need this if you're going to shoot lead bullets.
A brass guide for your cleaning rod, since you have to clean from the muzzle.
A Lewis Lead Remover Kit, if you shoot lead.
For home defense, I like the +P 158 gr. lead semi wadcutter, hollow point. Known in various parts of the country as the FBI, Chicago, New Orleans, or LA load.
OR:
In Magnum it's real hard to better the 125 gr. jacketed hollow point. The last tests I saw rated it at the 96-98% one shot stop level.
A good compromise would be something like Remington's mid-range Magnum load.
Range use depends on whether you reload.
Welcome to the revolver world, you'll like it.