“You know what they say, a rotating cog amasses no sporophyte”

– Dynamics Apprentice, Guild Wars 2

Hello internet! Welcome to the new blog! Let’s meet each other! My name is Josh Baines and I’ve never done anything like this before. I was inspired to start this blog by my Radio Television teacher and a genuine passion for talking about my hobbies.

A bit about me: I’ve been a super nerd since before I can remember. It probably started with my first pack of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards in the early 2000’s, my favorite card of the originals was no doubt Gaia The Fierce Knight. As a kid it was the casual playground trading and getting the rules wrong (Looking at you mystical space typhoon,) but as I entered high school I really delved into the competitive aspects of TCGs. For those wondering, yes I was a bujin player, and I hate myself for it.

In the latter half of high school I dipped my toes into Magic: The Gathering. I had always known about it, but was never really able to go near it until I had gotten my first job. I have myriad stories of my older brother always trying to get me to play with him and my mom stopping me because she thought MTG was evil. Luckily, she’s past that and could not care less. Bless you, Mom.

All of my brothers cards were Mirrodin / Phyrexia. Which to this day has always made things like Myr’s and Phyrexians some of my favorite archetypes in the game. I still get a little giddy when I see that little dagger set symbol.

Really though, what really consumed me was Dungeons & Dragons back in 2016. I remember going to the local Indigo with my ex and buying the 5th edition players handbook. Man, what an amazing book. You know that smell of fresh cards when you open a pack? Opening a mighty tome has something similar that just send me to my happy place.

Really, I had always wanted to play D&D, but I was a kid and had no idea what that actually entailed. And truth be told, what few friends I did have had no real interest.

And so it began; my 7 year journey as a perma-dungeon master began. Like everyone else, I started off awful. Probably more than awful if I was to be honest. My first game I tried to run was the original Tyranny of Dragons. Which if you know anything about those modules, you can already guess that it went about as terrible as expected. It was a 12 player game where half the people were on their phones, and the other half wanted to murder-hobo. Not a great start. I didn’t really DM again after this for a few years. I had eventually made an online group around 2018, which lasted around 2 years. I made so many mistakes that its eventual end could have been predicted from day one. But now days I’ve had an amazing group all thanks to my brother-in-law who to this day is probably my number one supporter of all my bad DM ideas. My next campaign is set to start on the 14th of January, you’ll no doubt be hearing about that.

Really though, this was all preamble to what my true passion is: Warhammer. Yes, I’m broke. No, I don’t regret it. I’ve been playing since the 8th edition supplement War of the Spider and have been an avid tournament goer since early 2022. This game is truly special and will be what you read about from me 90% of the time. It’s been a pretty crazy journey of a hobby too. I started off with Death Guard in 8th, learning against T’au with my buddy who also got into it at the same time. We had I think one large ruin on the board and that about it. I obviously never won, but that was fine, it was about the shared experience for me.

The idea of making friends and shared stories has driven the hobby for me to this day. Rarely does a bad loss get to me; my first tournament landing me a total of 6 points before paint between 3 games. I had brought 9th edition Eldar Night Spinner spam when their new codex just dropped. That should tell you how bad I was at the game. These days I usually place around the upper middle of the event.

I love tournaments, but I don’t really get the chance to go to as many anymore. Instead, I’m running them! Around October 2022 I started working at my local game store as their 40k tournament organizer. What a wild ride that has been, I’m sure I could write more than a few of these on the stuff I’ve dealt with. I am infinitely thankful for the opportunity from my boss for taking a huge risk on me. The last guy doing it just moved to another job, and I (fully out of character) asked for a shot at it. Next hiring cycle, I was in. I was so far out of my depth though, luckily, the tools I needed to succeed were more than given to me. You’ll never be good at something your first time, but with enough determination and careful practice I am a firm believer you can succeed in anything.

So yeah, welcome to this next part of my journey. I look forward to sharing the things I do with anyone who takes the time to visit my humble little blog.

Be safe, drink lots of water.

– Josh