Welcome to the Strelets Forum. Please feel free to discuss any aspect of 1/72 scale plastic figures, not simply Strelets. If you have any questions about our products then we will answer them here.
"Great poses - stick one in a firing line and it comes to life. But how many guys like that do you need?"
Exactly! That has been the traditional bugbear of the big box plastic figure sets: case in point being the superbly realized bare headed figure in the new Boer War Highlanders set. This little guy us a work of art and worth the price of admission on his own, but I bought two boxes to complete my highland brigade, and there is just no way I am going to field eight hatless figures in the battle line! One man may lose his helmet, but an entire company?!?
So I set too this week and fashioned Glengarry caps for them out of green stuff putty, and made two companies of 1914 Highlanders - photos on the way as a contribution to Strelets as I type this....
As someone said already Airfix were notorious for a lack of heavy weapons (or the correct ones)in their sets, and this was where the small Art of Tactic sets filled a niche well: it's nice to b able to pick up an HQ group, engineer section or single gun without having 25-30 'useless' figures wielding SMG's (Thompson's Curse)or throwing grenades left over!
I completely agree that companies (especially non-Strelets ones, as I feel they do a pretty nice job of this for the most part) need to be really careful about which poses they select, as simply scaling stuff from 28mm or 54mm does not always work properly. I referred to what you mentioned as "diorama" poses. They are great for one to two figures, but do I really need a whole box with 4-8 copies or more especially if I need multiples of the same box? It can quickly ruin entire sets.