UMS "Agram" : PIRATE'S COVE GAMING BOARD – pt.1 < Articles < Hobby

PIRATE'S COVE GAMING BOARD – pt.1

Marko Paunović, 22nd August 2020

Over the course of the next two articles, I'll follow the building process of a gaming board for a board game called Pirate's Cove that my club's terrain workshop did a couple of years ago.

About The Game:

Pirate's Cove is a board game originally published in Germany in 2002 by Amigo Spiele. In 2003, Days of Wonder republished it with a new graphic design. During the game, players play pirate ship captains seeking treasure from islands and bragging rights by defeating other pirates in naval combat. The game takes place over 12 turns (months) and the goal is to be the pirate with the most fame. Each player has a ship token and a card showing four aspects of the ship (crew, cannon, sail, and hull). At the beginning of each turn, a card is turned over at each island to reveal the potential booty from plunder. Each island (except Pirate's Cove and Treasure Island) offer various amounts of Fame, Gold, Treasure or Tavern cards.

Captains choose an island to plunder based on the potential rewards of that island and then fight if they show up at the same island. Certain islands offer the opportunity to upgrade an aspect of the ship and the available plunder at each island changes with each turn. A player can use this information to predict where other players' ships will turn up and thus move his ship accordingly to either do battle or avoid it. The bounty of each island is skewed so that some Islands are clearly better choices than others, so it can force you to decide (or bluff) if you think you can take the island should other pirates go after the same bounty. Ships that survive combat then plunder the islands, gain fame, and pay gold to upgrade their ships based on the qualities of the islands. The Legendary Pirate, a black ship token, moves clockwise around the board, forcing captains to steer out of his path unless they think that they can defeat the powerful ship. At Treasure Island, no battle can take place and it is where ships can safely discharge cargo from their ship and bury any plundered treasure (a ship's capacity to hold treasure is based on its hull rating). Burying treasure and money adds to the player's accumulated fame points.

The Design:

After playing a couple of games on the cardboard board provided in the game itself, my mate, Andrija Jurišić, and I decided we were going to make a proper board with little model ships to navigate the islands with. We decided to use a 90 x 90 cm plywood board that was 23mm thick. The first job to do was to draw the map onto the board, making sure that there is plenty of room for the scoring tiles around the entire board. Once we had our basic shape and measurements, we could continue with the design.

Immediately, we agreed to use LEDs inside all (or most) of the small buildings and huts scattered throughout the islands. Having a power source present made us think how cool it would be to have a proper smoking volcano so we started doing some research into various fog machines.

Foggers

The easiest way to obtain a fogger is going to your local pet store and getting a fogger for a terrarium. Apart from that, any DIY store should have a section with lamps. There are some lamps that come with a dish of some sorts and make fog that is then coloured by LEDs. I bought mine on ebay for about 8,00 USD with shipping. It uses a ceramic diaphragm vibrating at an ultrasonic frequency to create water droplets that silently exit the machine in the form of cool fog. They use a piezoelectric transducer to create a high frequency mechanical oscillation in a film of water. This forms an extremely fine mist of droplets about one micron in diameter, that quickly. However, these water droplets will contain any impurities that are in the reservoir, including minerals from hard water (which then forms a difficult-to-remove sticky white dust on nearby objects, in this case our scenery). Any pathogens growing in the stagnant tank will also be dispersed in the air. Therefore, they should be cleaned regularly to prevent bacterial contamination from being spread throughout the air. The amount of minerals and other materials can be greatly reduced by using distilled water, though no water is absolutely pure.

Science behind foggers

As noted earlier, the fogger consists of a piezoelectric ceramic disc which is provided with current through two nickel electrodes. Since the ceramic is piezoelectric, it oscillates in the presence of electric current at ultrasonic frequency (Ultrasonic means that you don't hear the sound waves generated in water).

With the increase of the frequency of oscillation of the plate, the water tries to follow the frequency of oscillation. However, due to its inertia and weight the water fails to match this frequency creating the water wave lags behind the wave of the disc. This creates an area of low pressure between them and this in turn forms a cavity - an occurance known as cavitation. The cavity can be a void or it can be filled with air since there is air dissolved in water and with the formation of low pressure, air moves into the cavity. When this cavity implodes, the imploding jet has a lot of energy. The vibrating disc also causes capillary waves at the surface of water (ripples). The capillary waves keep oscillating up and down due to surface tension and gravity. As the cavity implodes, a crossed capillary wave is formed at the surface. As a result at the crest of the wave, very small droplets of water have enough energy to break off the surface tension and get out of water. As soon as these minute drops of water exit the surface they are absorbed into the air and leave the machine as mist. The size of the aerosols gets smaller with increased frequency.

After deciding what electric and electronic gadgets to use on the board, we could make preliminar sketches of the entire table with the sizes of each individual island, and from there we could extrapolate the sizes not only of the houses/huts but also of the boats and ships. Slowly, our gaming board was begining to take shape. But before starting the work, we still needed to work how big all the electronics would be. For that, we needed to make a short calculation.

The Begining of the Build

With the basics of the electronics given above, I'll continue the practical application of it in the next issue. This article, I'll conclude with basic work done to the board itself. As mentioned, tha basic design was drawn first on the board itself. Then, a large hole for the wires was cut in the middle of the board, as well as a number of smaller ones, carefully distributed around the islands.

Andrija also made model ships out of balsa wood. Ahe first drew the basic outline of the waterline of the ship on a piece of paper. Then he cut it to make a template which he then used to draw the shapes of the ships onto a piece of balsa. Once cut and assembled, the ships were sanded and consequently painted with some basic rigging added.

While Andrija was busy with our armada, I was trying to run the wires to each of the islands. I decided that the wires would go underneath the table and would be fixed to the board using a staplegun.

This ends the begining part of the project. In the next issue, I'll describe how we built the islands, all the houses and the rest of the scenery as well as describe the electric circuits built in the gaming board.

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	U subotu 25.10.2025. održao se Foto Video Show & ModelMania Zagreb u Kongresnoj dvorani na Zagrebačkom Velesajmu. UMS Agram je nastupio s prezentacijom rada naših raznih programa poput Advent u Agramu, Agram Group Build, Agram Lego Sekcija i Knjižnica i čitaonica UMS "Agram".

	

	  

	  

	  

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Marko Paunović, 5th November 2025

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	In October we started with our first board for Necropolis, and with an appropriate theme! – the Eternal Autumn configuration from the Necropolis rulebook. The configuration is such that it only requires 3 trees, which we considered too boring, so instead of one tree, we plan to build a cubic lime kiln and 2 streams.

	  

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	The next step is to cover the entire board with a mixture of gypsum and sand and make the stove itself.

	  
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	U listopadu smo započeli s našim prvim boardom za Necropolis, i to s primjerenom tematikom! – Eternal Autumn konfiguracijom iz Necropolis rulebooka. Konfiguracija je takva da nalaže samo 3 stabla, što smo smatrali predosadnim te umjesto jednog stabla kanimo izraditi kockastu vapnenu peć i 2 potoka.

	  

	Board je inspiriran Hawthorneovom pričom Ethan Brand, gdje nekoliko likova priča o neoprostivom grijehu (pored vapnare usred američke pastoralne idile). Estetski ciljamo na ranu jesen s ruralnim motivima, uz kvrgava stabla (ala Burtonov Sleepy Hollow) i nekoliko bundeva.

	  

	Za sada smo jako daleko od ikakvih estetskih odabira jer smo se nosili s osnovnom građom boarda: kućište je napravljeno od borovih lijepljenih dasaka za podni dio i borovih profila za bočne strane. Nakon što smo sve zalijepili drvofixom, cijelo kućište je fino izbrušeno. Veličina stirodur ploče koja sjeda u kućište je 40cmx40cmx2cm (Necropolis standard je 16“x16“).

	  

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	Stabla su zapravo pravo mangrovo drvo, tako da ima prirodne kvrge i zavijutke. Kako bismo dodali sleepy hollow šmek, izdubili smo nekolika rupa u drvu gdje bismo smjestili greenstuff lica. Jedno smo drvo poduprli s komadima borove kore kako ne bi bilo previše nagnuti i ometalo igru.

	  

	Sljedeći korak je prekrivanje cijelog boarda smjesom gipsa i pijeska te izrada same peći.

	  
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Antoni Pastuović, 5th November 2025

WE ATTENDED: AmuletD20 Grand Tournament 2025

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	In early October I had the opportunity to visit my neighbors from the Amuletd20 association. This time it wasn't an artsy Turnip28 event, but a huge tournament in AOS and Conquest games.

	  

	Besides the main event, there were tables playing Kings of War, as well as Warhammer: The Old World, where I came with my Chaos Dwarfs.

	  

	Unfortunately, I think TOW was the least represented with four players, but this little community was wonderful! Players helped each other with the rules and the games were very friendly. In addition to my choirs, there was also an army of High Elves at the event, as well as two armies of Brettons.

	  

	  

	  

	I spent my event fighting the noble knights of Brettonia, and I believe that my dwarves were helped by the atypical mobility obtained from the monsters (Wyverna, Lammasu and Bale Taurus) accompanied by the antithesis of HŽ (Iron Daemon) and a spell that increased the infantry's mobility.

	  

	The Kings of War tables were much more dynamic, with more players, more games, and the waxes themselves were far more diverse. I'm glad that the tables were close so I had the opportunity to hang out with the hosts Luka and Vane.. It was definitely a surprise when our Mario visited us and hung out with us.

	  

	I managed to find enough time to walk around the rest of the event - and it was impressive to see so many players in one place. Amuletd20 really did a phenomenal job for their first event.

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	After the event, we went to the association's premises to socialize a little more. And, if you're curious about what it was like there, come to the next Amulet event yourself, you certainly won't regret it.

	  

	P.S. Many thanks to Luka, Vana and Mita for the invitation and hospitality!
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	Početkom listopada imao sam priliku posjetiti susjede iz udruge Amuletd20. Ovog puta nije bio artsy Turnip28 event, nego ogroman turnir u AOS i Conquest igrama.

	  

	Osim main eventa, bilo je stolova na kojima se igralo i Kings of War, kao i Warhammer: The Old World gdje sam došao sa svojim Chaos Dwarfovima.

	  

	Nažalost, mislim da je TOW bio najslabije zastupljen s četiri igrača, ali je ovaj mali community bio divan! Igrači su si međusobno pomagali s pravilima i partije su bile jako Friendly, Uz moje chorfove, na eventu je bila i jedna vojska High Elfova, kao i dvije vojske Brettonaca.

	  

	  

	  

	Svoj event proveo sam boreći se plemenitim vitezovima Brettonie, a vjerujem da je mojim patuljcima pomogla netipična mobilnost dobivena čudovištima (Wyverna, Lammasu i Bale Taurus) u pratnji antiteze HŽ-a (Iron Daemon) i čarolije koja je pješadiji povećavala mobilnost.

	  

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	Uspio sam uhvatiti dovoljno vremena da prošećem i ostatkom eventa - i bilo je impresivno vidjeti toliko igrača na istom mjestu. Amuletd20 je zaista odradio fenomenalan posao za prvi event koji organiziraju.

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	Nakon eventa, otišli smo do prostora udruge podružiti se još malo. A, ako vas zanima kako je tamo bilo, dođite i sami na idući Amuletov event, sigurno nećete požaliti.

	  

	P.S. Veliko hvala Luki, Vani i Miti na pozivu i gostoprimstvu!
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Domagoj Krpan, 30th October 2025

Back to Basics Workshops in Medveščak Library

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	During October and November, we held our Back to Basics miniature painting workshops for the youngest at the Zagreb City Libraries.

	

	

	The first set of three workshops was held in the Youth Department of the Medveščak Library on October 2, 9 and 11, 2025.

	

	

	During the workshops, our youngest participants painted chibi figures from the UMS Agram line and made a castle from upcycled materials.

	

	

	

	

	

	

	

	

	More photos can be found on our social media.

	
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	Tijekom listopada i studenog u Knjižnicama Grada Zagreba smo održali naše Back to Basics radionice bojanja minijatura za najmlađe. 

	

	

	Prvi set od tri radionice održan je u Odjelu za mlade Knjižnice Medveščak 2., 9. i 11.10.2025. 

	

	

	Tijekom radionica naši najmlađi polaznici su bojali chibi figure iz linije UMS Agram te izrađivali dvorac od upcycle materijala.

	

	

	

	

	

	

	

	

	Više fotografija potražite na našim socijalnim mrežama!

	
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Krunoslav Belinić, 13th October 2025

Gaslands - Tutorial II

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	In this article I will briefly describe how I painted another set of three cars for Gaslands. Same as last time, I started with a black undercoat.

	

	As I decided to keep the colour of the vehicles matt black, I left it at that and proceeded to paint the windshields. Using much the same method I used for the yellow crew, I applied the chosen paint scheme. Unlike blue windshields with the yellow crew, here I decided to use the yellow/red combo.

	

	I then added chrome.

	

	In the end, I added metallic details such as guns etc.

	

	It was time to add the decals. I first painted all the surfaces with gloss varnish. Then I added the decals and after they set properly, I covered everything with Ultra Matt Varnish..

	

	And thus ended the painting process.

	

	GALLERY OF THE TWO FINISHED CREWS

	

	

	

	

	

	

	
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	U ovom ću  članku opisati kako sam obojao drugi set od tri autića za Gaslands demo partije. Kao i prošli puta, krenuo sam s crnim undercoatom. 

	

	S obzirom da sam odlučio da ovaj crew bude mat crn, farbanje karoserija sam tu prekinuo i počeo sam sa staklima. Slično kao i prošli put, koristio sam sličnu shemu, ali u drugim bojama. Za razliku od plavih refleksija na žutim autima, na crnima sam se odlučio za žuto/crvenu kombinaciju. 

	

	Dodao sam krom.

	

	I na kraju dodao metalne dijelove poput oružja.

	

	Na ovim autima, odlučio sam dodati i naljepnice. Prvo sam na površine s naljepnicama stavio gloss lak. Potom sam postavio naljepnicce i nakon što su se dobro osušile sam te iste površine prekrio mat lakom. 

	

	Time sam završio posao...

	

	GALERIJA ZAVRŠENIH RADOVA!

	

	

	

	

	

	

	
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