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.
Battle sets certainly have their place in the hobby. They act as a starter pack for those just beginning. Much like model railway enthisiasts have train sets of varying price points and model kit makers have sets that contain glue and paint to go alongside the model.
Much of the reason for me being into Napoleonics and 1/72 is due to the Airfix Waterloo set being a Christmas present when i was a little kid. However there was also the WW2 sets like the Airfix gun emplacement etc that I had back then.
As for scales, i settled on 1/72 as it was what I was used to. It was the scale those 1st sets bought me happened to be and was what I continued to get with my pocket money. Thinking about it i dont even think there was any other scales in my local toy shop, certainly nothing below 1/72-1/76. Now im older, the reason I stick with it is its small enough to not take up huge amounts of room but at the same time is large enough to be able to have a good level of detail. Strelets have shown that of recent.
I did think about going down the 15mm route when getting back into the hobby, but i decided i wanted to be able to see the detail without straining my eyes!!!
I actually quite like this kind of format. Though I do like the 'old fashioned' way of collecting and assembling armies as well, I also think it is nice to occasionally have a project with clear boundaries and and a fully playable game as an end result. I have been collecting 1 / 72 napoleonic with the goal of building a Black Powder army for a while now. Unfortunately progress is slow, and since I know few people in my area playing historic wargames/ painting historics, I haven't played much yet. Managable projects like the Perry Travel Battle have been great for this reason, as they can be finished in a reasonable amount of time and produce a visually attractive game that can be played with friends (with no need for building landscape elements etc.) The only thing witholding me from buying this are the time period (I am not really into the ACW) and the slightly odd scale. If Warlord would produce a Napoleonic version, however, I would probably be hooked!