What to do, what to do?

At the moment there is but one immediate goal on my horizon as far as wargaming goes and that is Joy of Six and the Bull Run battle .However for many years I have been envious of the many eras and figures that you guys have collected , and with more cash available for my wargaming these days and my ever increasing enthusiasm for Fire and Fury, I have been looking for something a little different to run alongside my obsession with the American Civil War. My Modern Spearhead German stuff is more or less a done thing with a few vehicles on order to replace missing or damaged ones and the standard NATO paint job is pretty uninspiring , so the question was ,what to do?,what to do?
'Rusty ' has recently renewed his interest in Age of Eagles the napoleonic version of fire and fury, written not by the same author, but with his blessing, by a retired U.S army colonel called Wilbur Gray or Colonel Bill as he refers to himself in his emails. Anyway as usual I'm rambling, short story is I ordered Age of Eagles with the intention of building a Baccus army to fight Russ' French  and give me something to paint other than the Blue and the Grey.
 Colonel Bill it turns out is a very nice chap and he sent me an email saying that as I have ordered a hard copy of Age of Eagles I can have a free PDF copy of one of the Age of Eagle Modules called Age of Valour. There was a choice of about eight and one caught my eye almost straight away. Several years ago I got hooked on the Blackwood saga written by Douglas Reeman ,a story about 150 years of a fictional Royal Marine family from the days of African conquest to the 1st world war. The first novel was called Badge of Glory and the story culminated with the Royal Marine Battalions participation in the Crimea.

The Crimean War (May 1853 – March 1856) was technically fought over access to Christian shrines in Ottoman controlled Jerusalem. In reality, the Sultan’s affording Catholic France

control of the Church of the Nativity was merely a convenient pretext to justify long desired Russian expansion at the expense of a beleaguered Ottoman Empire. France and Britain saw thru the charade and immediately supported the Porte with money and two large armies beside. In response the Czar evacuated Turkish territory seized along the Danube, but the Allies pressed on to the Crimea, determined to teach Nicolas I a well-deserved lesson by torching the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The Russians accommodated the Allies by scuttling the fleet themselves, but Britain, stout of heart if thick of head, continued south with the French to capture the port of Sevastopol. The campaign that followed was a military circus, one part sublime bravery by the common soldier, garnished with unbelievable ineptitude on the part of his generals, the Light Brigade’s little tiff at Balaklava now synonymous with military suicide. Though few remember, the war was also fought in the Danube provinces of the Porte as well as the Caucasus, where the Turks, ably led by Mushir Omar Pasha, scored several important victories against the Russians. Alas for the Czar, Allied incompetence could not negate technology, particularly Minie and Enfield rifles. With Austrian neutrality in doubt (Vienna conveniently forgot Moscow’s aid suppressing the 1848 Hungarian revolt), the Russians signed the Treaty of Paris ending hostilities on 30 March 1856. Only the French army emerged with heads held high, in part due to its final commander, the exquisitely rude, but tenacious Marshal Aimable Pelissier. 

As you have probably surmised by now I chose the Crimea module which arrived in my email this morning and I am not disappointed. Within are troop specifications for the British, French , Turk and Russian forces plus maps and Fire and Fury ( Age of Empire) OOBs for the battles at Alma, Inkermann , Traktir Bridge and the storming of the Malakov redoubts .
So that's it. My wargaming for the next few years is laid out before me. North America , its historical battles and a future operational game of ACW shall be my muse. NATO, Napoleonics and the Crimea shall be my Mistresses . Let the good times roll.