Like I said, I'm on my second Frostgrave Cultist and Wizard box... It would be nice to see Wargames Atlantic in the same position with its sets. Ya I can troll ebay looking for blunderbuss, jezzails, wheelock pistols and matchlock muskets. But the reason the North Star sets were so useful to me is that they filled rolls on the D&D adventuring table and on the Skirmish wargaming table (Mordheim and Necromunda 95). Yes, I could get a box of Barron's war peasants, glue crossbows or lasguns to them, and play William Tell all day long, as you seem to be very interested. But when I try to stretch their use into the 41st millenium I'm left with another Imperial Guard regiment (a niche WA has already filled nicely) and not an autonomous warband (outlaw gang / wastelander).
As I clearly said before, there is no shortage of AK-47's (Autoguns) in our bit boxes. Or lasguns or bolters, for that matter. What we do lack is musketry to equip our Scavvie, Wastelanders, Nomad, and Indigenous hive dwellers. As well as the Landsknechte mercenaries that make the perfect Mordheim warband. The ogres are great but can we get some humans? The free companies set GW produced could easily be used as hive gangsters or space pirates. The WA Guards box is well on its way to filling this role, but again it lacks musketry of any kind (I've purchased it with gusto).
Maybe Deathfields (DF) isn't the title Wasteland Scavengers should be under...? I like the heroic scale of DF and the equipment similarities to 40K. But I find the arena narrative of the franchise very imaginatively limiting and denies the kind of expansive sandbox that Necromunda 95 encourages you to break out of. There was nothing stopping the Necromunda 95 / Ash Wastes / Gorkamorka systems from expanding into the greater galaxy. And the freedom of a skirmish system should allow you build that narrative where ever you want and at any tech level.
The greatest argument for wasteland musketry comes down to autonomous production and varied success in scavenging. Yes, it's logical that everyone would use AK-47, 50-500 years into a post apocalypse. But eventually production gets knocked back to the stone age and folks need to make due. We're never going to forget how to make a musket, blunderbuss, or crossbow. But it may take an unreasonably long time to have the industrial capacity to make metal springs. The Chinese communists even had a hard time making reliable automatic weapons in the 1950's (Type 50) and they even had the Soviets helping them.
The 900 Lb gorilla in the room is that Northstar has made a Scavengers box for Stargrave and I have indeed purchased it. It is the set that keeps on giving and I'll never lack autoguns or gasmasks because of it. It's given me an Ashwastes Nomad Gang or the incognito raiders of my choosing. Unfortunately these miniatures are very clean. They look like professional techno hackers and not the radiation soaked trash scavengers of the wasteland ruins.
In the end it's easier to add advanced technology than to take it away. If the available baseline is muskets, crossbows, jezzails, molotovs, chains, and javelins. Then an added autogun, laz-fusil, or breach loading shotgun becomes the best piece of scavenged wargear in the wasteland. Most models will probably transition out of archaic weapons as they advance but the temptation to equip new recruits cheaply will always be there.
The Lizard Man box comes closest to having this mix but the claws are problematic. I love the Afghans but they aren't culturally ambiguous enough. Mining tools and traps are also bits I wouldn't begrudge in a scavenger's set (boltcutters!!!).
