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Hello,
we would like to introduce ourselves. Ghost Train Games is a rising effort that assembles enthusiastic and creative gamers with decades of accumulated experience. Being players ourselves, we strive to make fans who join us in our fascinating world feel the same passion, fun and emotion than we do creating this game.
Our first game is Alternative Civil War: 1861. Alternative Civil War: 1861 is a 28mm scale miniature wargame set in an alternate background where impossible science collides with ancient magicks and weird beings clash with courageous soldiers over the American Civil War battlegrounds.
We are releasing the alpha version of our rules in a few days and we would like as much diffusion and opinions as possible.
You can check our website at www.ghosttraingames.com, where you can also find our facebook and twitter to keep in touch with us and send your opinions and contributions.
We are gamers as yourselves, and we're open to receive ideas and suggestion, no matter how unconventional they may be. We'll accept the playtest feedback and integrate it in the rules. You can contact us via email, facebook or twitter (all available in www.ghosttraingames.com) to send this feedback, or for any questions or suggestions.
We hope you love it as much as we do!

Thanks in advance.

This sounds a little familiar...

Anyway, best of luck!

Sounds interesting. Best of luck.

Sounds interesting, but not very original. However, if it is well done then that's all that matters. Will you be doing miniatures too, or just rules?

With the plastic/metal civil war minis out there already you could probably just make some conversion packs to quickly have some sciency/magicy bits to add into things.

I'm on the fence in regards to the miniatures but I do wish you the best of luck.

We're sculpting miniatures too. There's a great range of 28mm miniatures out there that you can use to play our game too, but we're going for a huge deal of own fringe science, magick weirdos and terrible beasts, giving our miniatures a whole new modern look think you might appretiate.
Here's a little example:

Franklin Experimental Brigade, the weird North guys (WIP):




If you go check our website, i think you might be surprising how innovative we are (or try to be!)

That's a nice mini. It doesn't really say, "Alternate Civil War," to me, but it looks nice.

Looks neat to me. I'll have to look at the rules.

 bbb wrote:
That's a nice mini. It doesn't really say, "Alternate Civil War," to me, but it looks nice.

The Writing on the Concept art makes it seem much more Weird Civil War.

 Ghost Train Games wrote:

Franklin Experimental Brigade, the weird North guys (WIP):

Sweet!

I'm from the North, and quite possibly could be considered...weird...

I'm in!

Our background goes as alternative but it quickly escalated and the game itself should be considered more weird than alternative, I agree!

Quick glance, looks neat, specially for steam punk fans . I'll post something in my p&m blog.

That mini looks pretty cool, I will be following this.

Loving he pics I've seen on your sight, can't wait for more

In the next couple days we will show you the first alpha ruleset. Maybe in the meanwhile you may enjoy reading some of the background that lead to the international and savage clash the Civil War is. Here's a little preview, but you can read the whole of it at http://ghosttraingames.com/the-road-so-far-2/

At the turn of the 19th Century, hordes of American settlers began moving across the Appalachian frontier, spurred by the promise of new lives and new lands in the great virgin wilderness that lay beyond the mountains. The eyes of the European kings and princes were turned inward towards France, and their colonial claims on the vast American hinterlands were weak and tenuous. Only the fractured Indian tribes stood between America and her manifest destiny. The Indians could be killed off, bought off or relocated. First the Delaware, then the Wyandot and the Miami, one by one the strength of the major Ohio tribes was broken under the sheer weight of the numbers of white settlers, and sometimes by the force of arms of the tiny American Army. The surviving Miami and Delaware were taken in by the Shawnee, the last and of greatest of the Ohio nations.

It was into this doomed world that the Shawnee prophet Tenskwatawa began his rise to power. One night, in a trance, he fell into a fire and arose purified, claiming to have been bestowed apocalyptic visions of the future. Tenkswatawa affirmed that the Great Serpent had come from beyond the sea, followed by malignant powers and white demons to do evil. The Europeans were sons of the Great Serpent, according to The Prophet, who forbade his people alcohol, food, clothes and goods manufactured in Europe and the USA, even firearms. The city of Prophetstown (Indiana) was founded by his followers, and they began to call him “The Open Door” and “One with an Open Mouth”. Besides his elder twin brother, the warlord Tecumseh, he travels far distances preaching for the union of all the Indian tribes against “the sons of the evil spirits”.

Just by reading your post here I'm a little confused as to what any of that has to do with an alternate civil war. Is that what's leading up to it?

 Rotgut wrote:
Just by reading your post here I'm a little confused as to what any of that has to do with an alternate civil war. Is that what's leading up to it?

...yeah, in RL, most of this is pre-Civil War history (tell your HS history teacher you want your money back)

Erm Deadlands ???

You have piqued my interest. I will be keeping an eye on your releases.

I like the WIP models thus far. I am keenly interested in 19th century American themed steam-punk miniatures with a particular "feel," that you seem to be capturing. Steam punk is a pretty varied genre, and I prefer a more gritty, practical, slap-dash edge to it; almost post-apocalyptic, no frills, greasy meal, rivets. Like a Kleif M.1915 flamethrower.

And Deadlands does not have a monopoly on alternate history 19th century America. I think that there is plenty of room for a well-designed and well supported alternate history ACW game. They key, I think lies in creating an engaging and compelling universe with unique miniatures. Weird Wars 19th century America is not terribly well supported in terms of wargaming miniatures. There's some to be had for sure, but piecemeal from many different manufacturers.

WW Exodus is ridiculous, and Empire of the Dead, though full of wonderful miniatures, has a strong Victorian England slant because that is what it is supposed to be. A cohesive range of steam-punkish ACW era miniatures would be a welcome addition to the market, especially if they blended well with extant ACW miniatures, such as the wonderful and growing line of Perry Brothers plastic box sets.

I have not had an opportunity to read much of the history yet, but I like where your point of departure seems to be. Tenskwatawa is a good figure to use and this is an interesting period to exploit. As an example for SavageCoyote, the Deadlands history really departed during the ACW, whereas from what I am seeing here (and I will take a more detailed look when I have more time), Ghost Train is building in strong points of departure during the formative years of the American nation. We're talking War of 1812 here. I suspect this is why Ghost Train has UK, Spain, China, and Russia as factions.

The world really was waiting to see if the US would explode into anarchy. Few thought the 'experiment' would last very long, and the British in particular were perched up in Canada subtly undermining the success of the burgeoning American nation. It was a period of a great deal of upheaval, especially in the Ohio Valley, and there's a lot to hang your hat on when it comes to Tecumseh, such as the New Madrid Earthquakes. All in all, very interesting, and a good way to nudge the trajectory of history into the fantastic.

You have to read up the whole story to see what is really going, my post is only the beginning.
We're not going after Deadlands (which is actually a good deal of our inspiration, of course, we love Deadlands!). We're setting a world where magic and myths have always been and always will be, and they're just returning for some reason. It started around 1812, and people started to grow more and more frightened about it. The Civil War is the final clash to deal with the supernatural threats that are rising all around.
weeble1000 summarised pretty well our intentions, actually

 Ghost Train Games wrote:
You have to read up the whole story to see what is really going, my post is only the beginning.
We're not going after Deadlands (which is actually a good deal of our inspiration, of course, we love Deadlands!). We're setting a world where magic and myths have always been and always will be, and they're just returning for some reason. It started around 1812, and people started to grow more and more frightened about it. The Civil War is the final clash to deal with the supernatural threats that are rising all around.
weeble1000 summarised pretty well our intentions, actually

It comes from too much time studying the Ohio Valley, Richard White for the win.

Thanks for that refreshingly well thought out post, weeble1000. Have an exalt!

We released the first version of our rules. I've made a post about it on:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/547137.page#5964182

Hello!
To celebrate the 500 likes milestone in our facebook page (This is Our Facebook - 386 likes atm!) we want to do something remarkable. We will open a contest where one of the participants will receive a little something special (28mm little) so... help us spread the word!