you will need to find a method that suite you and then try to improve it on every cycle.
each person can give you advice but it will be based on his own experience, you need to find what is good for your situation.
regular seeds might be complicated if you do not have grow space with moms etc.
if you start with one seed and grow it big so you can SCROG it for 400W. there is 50% chance you spend 4-8 weeks on growing a male...
you can improve your chances and reduce the grow time by starting with 4 plants and SCROG them, but on average you will lose time and space on growing males - my advice is to try femenized seeds. (lucky for growers like us most companies in Europe sale fem seeds, I guess its the demande...)
as for grow space, if you reduce the lamp + hood + at least 20cm of protection from heat you end up with ~1.4 meter. if we reduce another ~20 cm of the pot, you end up with around 1.2 meter. it should be ok for most cases and you are right to SCROG it and focus on short plants (using cool tube might give you extra valuable space and temp control)
advice I can give you is to sprout the seed in some place using small 23W CFL for a week or two. no need to start with 400W and it will short your rotation by week or two. you just need to time it right
from my experience: (all feminized)
Kandy Kush from DNA - not too big, nice taste and high
sour kush from DNA - if you like AK47 taste, I didn't find it too big as well
exodus cheese from green house - I am growing it now so I can't tell you how good it is, but it relativly small and bushy
I am sure there are many feminized skunk / kush / chesse strains ppl can recommend you.
*personally I who'd try ~4 fem skunk at start. it cheap and fast so you can test your setup and grow method on it.