This week, I’m bringing you an update from the depths of Patreon/Discord with my review of Onwards AoS. For me, one of the big questions around coaching is really if it is worth it or not. I know a few people who feel like it’s too much but I also know a fair few who have or are using a coaching service. Having had a bit of a look around, AoS coaching in general looks cheaper than that for 40k but on the other hand, there are less options out there. Today, I’m looking specifically at Onwards AoS which is one of the larger groups out there offering these services.

This has been a bit long due as I started with this back in the first half of last year when I was looking at how to get better (still working on that 😉). I’ve known of Onwards for quite a while thanks to the Miscast podcast of which Darren Watson, the Onwards Head Honcho, was a part of. Great Podcast focused on competitive topics which are still relevant today.

Disclaimer: I’d signed up at the Onwards Prime tier to scope things out for myself and Onwards supported this review by covering the coaching sessions so I’m effectively reviewing the Apprentice Tier in this article. I’ll work my way today through the key offerings from Onwards and let you know what I’ve thought of it all.

Maybe a little point of note, the coaches and contributors for Onwards AoS are really the top of the top here (check out those names below). What I like in part about this is that on top of all the content and services from these players is that you have options and can switch from one coach to another if there is something specific you are looking to work on with them. It’s also a bit of a laugh to catch the banter between them on the Discord!

These are the coaches you can expect to be dealing with from the Onwards team: Darren Watson (occasionally when someone new isn’t sure who best to work with), Luke Morton – UK, Tobias Schwarz – Germany, Nathan Watson – Scotland, Ronya Andersson – Sweden, Tomasz Mucha – Poland, Tom Guan – USA, Dan Bradshaw – UK, Stuart ‘Irongutsman’ McCowan – Australia, Péter Kreitl – Hungary

List Reviews

Each month, you can submit a list for review (I should do this more often!) and one of the coaches will get back to you with feedback on the list and help you to explore options or improve that list. I was really excited about this as the “guy who loves lists” and in the first months, I was really keen on this one but as I feel like I’ve landed on specific lists, then I was less motivated to use it. Now that I think about it I should use it more often to explore lists I’m thinking about playing or I should try and write lists for other armies to explore what they do (I have literally just paused writing this article to submit one before the end of Feb 😊). Some of the highlights of this was having Ronja reviewing my Nighthaunt lists and finding we were running practically the same (Ronja has consistently been one of the top Nighthaunt players worldwide) and shooting the shit with Darren Watson about my KO list options.

FIGHT NIGHT and Challenge the Coaches

I’m bundling these two ones together as I’ve found for me they’ve served a similar purpose. The FIGHT NIGHT are games played between coaches where the Patreons also get the chance to influence the armies, lists, and battleplans played. I hadn’t expected being able to request battleplans or list types and I think that is a really cool feature of this. These are some of the top players worldwide duking it out which gives you a great chance to watch how players of that calibre play through their games. They also talk through aspects of the matchups and decisions which gives you insights which you may not catch with other battle reports. One of the big benefits for me here was seeing some of that approach towards playing and practicing. The other cool thing that I liked is that they really kept things topical so new armies getting played and meta picks being used, the discussions around these certainly have helped me (I’m unfortunately still scared of Sylvaneth though).

Challenge the Coaches riffs on this theme where Patreons can put their hand up to play against one of the coaches and then one of them will be picked at random to play a game which is then streamed and recorded for the Patreons too. Considering that a lot of the people there to be coached are already really good players, these matches are also a really good watch. I was a bit of a wuss and hadn’t nominated myself to play yet for one of these but now that I feel like I’ve got the hang of TTS and I’m feeling right back into it, I’m hoping I get picked for one of these soon.

Videos from the Coaches

Back when I started, Darren was running list clinics which I managed to join a few times where he’d shoot the shit with the Patreons and field questions live. Over the last 6 months though this has evolved with Luke and Tomasz taking over this side of things and now running sessions once a week, most often in a Q&A format but sometimes also diving deep on specific topics which are currently relevant. Unfortunately… I had no internet at home for months and I really fell behind / used up all my mobile data trying to watch a few of them but I’m all caught up now and I’ve come away with some good things to think about by listening to these. Stuart “Irongutsman” also posts specific videos up with list reviews, tier lists, and faction deep dives, he does a really good job on the videos and I like his presentation style! You can check out some of his stuff over on his Youtube. I see these as an expansion of what’s available online elsewhere and I’ve been seeing a benefit of having these to listen to or watch on top of other podcasts and offerings elsewhere. Especially if you’re looking for coverage which takes into account teams events, this is a good aspect of their offerings. These are really focussed on the competitive side of things and I like being able to relisten to them afterwards. Oh, I almost forgot, Luke has just started up  a series I really like too, he’s interviewing the other coaches about their tournaments. I am an absolute sucker for this sort of content, I’ve only been able to catch half of one so far but I’m really looking forward to hearing from Tom Guan and others about tournaments which they’re attending. These offerings seem to be expanding at a huge rate right now and if I’ve understood right, they’ll start being available to watch live for non-Patreons as well quite soon!

Coaching

What you’re really here for is probably this bit right? In the end, it feels like this represents about ¾ of the value overall. Especially thinking back to what has made a difference since I started with Onwards, it’s specific points I’ve taken out from those coaching sessions and been able to implement on the tabletop. I’m 7 coaching sessions in at this point and where I’m gaining value is changing which is something I appreciate about the adaptive nature of the coaching sessions.

I started out my coaching with Darren and this was really focussed on thinking about how I play, why I play, and what I want to get out of my games. This had some major impacts for me in terms of changing gears regarding my approach to playing. We also worked through concrete ways to simply learn better from the games. I’ve still got my little notebooks with me on my desk (and I’m back to filling them in properly after each game). Looking back, I realise this was different than I’d expected going in but the impact has been definite. There are a lot of little pointers which I think on regularly when prepping for tournaments like having a little treat for myself ready to crack open between games 2 and 3 to perk myself up. Little things like this I never would have thought about being a part of the coaching but looking back at my last GT, this definitely helped turned around my day and get me back to enjoying and winning games.

Coaching with Nate has been more focused on what I’d expected as a part of coaching. It’s been more focussed on the concrete issues I’ve been having. You may have noticed a couple of TTS focussed articles, that’s definitely been helped along by Nate’s introduction and recommendations. TTS has replaced a lot of what I did before with pencil and paper or with fruit and some models to make checking options out and running through deployments much quicker which means I’m doing it better and I do more of it. This is taking some of the early game stress away and letting me concentrate on what I need to do to adapt or react to my opponent. It was also really helpful to work through battleplans I was having trouble on and to review the battleplans before games I had upcoming. I now go into tournaments and leagues much better prepared and more confident.

On top of that, Nate has been a great sounding board where I can take problems that I don’t know how to deal with and he throws me ideas for how to deal with those things. This has made a big difference in the last couple of months as I’ve had the time to really put in practice what he’s been proposing.

An important aspect here regardless of who the coach was is that the coaching side is “real time” so it is advice which is relevant in today’s meta. That’s been particularly important with me swinging from KO to Nighthaunt and back again and trying to change up how I play. This is part of what makes the sessions stick out in comparison to listening to Podcasts or reading articles, the other part being of course is that it is tailored to you, what you’re playing and what you’re trying to achieve.

Is it worth it?

I didn’t know where else in the article to bring this up so here goes with a funny topic to start this bit… As good as the coaches may be, at times, I was my own worst enemy, being a little lazy or not having the time to actually get games in and put things to practice. I’m definitely seeing the difference it makes when I make the time to put in the hard work on my end and make those changes happen. Coaching isn’t going to magically make you better but if you combine it with your hard work, I do think you’ll get your value out of it.

Is it worth it from the money side of things? I am a tight arse… which is a bit funny when you think about the hobby I’m writing about. One way to look at it though is to compare the cost to modelling/painting side of the hobby though… the cost of the coaching is in the end less than a box of models a month. In the end, perhaps it’s a choice to do this or to buy more models. Or you may look for a coaching service for a specific period of time to focus on an event or specific goals. Everyone needs to decide for themselves in the end.

For me… I can definitely see the value in doing this and I’ve signed myself up to continue. This is something which increases the value of my competitive gaming aspect of the hobby. One of my most valuable resources is time and Onwards lets me make the most of the time I can get to play competitively.

My verdict: Worth it for me, why not give it a shot and see if it’s worth it for you too!