You don't have to be a programmer to use Mach4, just some simple screen editor changes to get things "your way" then off you go. And.....Mach4 WILL run your machine much better that Mach3 ever did. Trust me, it was a hard pill to swallow for me, too, but now that I'm there, Mach4 is SOOoooo much better.
If you need the axis to be a slave, don't you NEED it to be a slave? Normally a slave axis is used on a machine that needs two motors driving one axis, like a gantry router. I don't know much about slaves, homing with a slave axis, or anything, really, so someone else will need to chime in here to help you out.
Hang in there, man, there are lots of folks here to help, but they're somewhat intolerant of questions asked that are easily answered by searching the forums or watching a few youtube videos!!! Not like LinuxCNC, however, where you're a dumb ********* if you can't program the kernel itself!!!
Tom