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I've been playing three armies for a while now. IG, Chaos and GKs.
However in the last few months I've only seen a few people playing GKs and none actually doing so in tournament play, except some that I've seen posted from result online.

Does anyone know how well the viability has changed, because the army is still one of the most mortal wound heavy ones out there and despite losing more anti-vehicle over the last few editions. Not to mention losing their access to D class damage, when such weapons classifications were dropped and vortex of doom became an anti-mob dueling tool. I've been happy with my results, winning a vast majority of the time even after the rule change and even the Codex Approved update. But I just know why it is that I'm not seeing them more in tournament play.

Low number counts, limited AV?
From what I've been able to do it's obvious that they have limitations, but that can be said about every army. Voldus and especially Kaldor Draigo are probably two of the most powerful characters in the game. Barring any of the princes and even then I've had Draigo fold Magnus's spiky little head into a pretzel. As well as putting Abaddon into his own personal hurt locker. But I did try to 1v1 a Wraith Knight with him and if it wasn't able to just walk out of melee, he'd probably have won that one as well.

Their relic selection sucks, probably "the" worst in the game and I'm saying that because I'm just not up to date on all of the armies relic list right now, but that's exactly what it feels like.

So does anyone have any idea, or do they know of any other tournament list that I may have looked over?

They used to be one of the worst factions in the game period. Bad enough that even pre-codex orks felt pitty at them.

With CA19 point drops and PA boost they look to be better but with corona putting stop to tournaments early data to see how good and hindered by tournaments that did happen after PA being generally dominated by marines who were ridiculously broken. Still too good with nerfs but at least gap isn't as ridiculous.

Current state is harder to tell because there's no big tournaments out there and smaller local ones aren't that useful especially in few numbers and lots is hard to get with the corona.

tneva82 wrote:
They used to be one of the worst factions in the game period. Bad enough that even pre-codex orks felt pitty at them.

With CA19 point drops and PA boost they look to be better but with corona putting stop to tournaments early data to see how good and hindered by tournaments that did happen after PA being generally dominated by marines who were ridiculously broken. Still too good with nerfs but at least gap isn't as ridiculous.

Current state is harder to tell because there's no big tournaments out there and smaller local ones aren't that useful especially in few numbers and lots is hard to get with the corona.

I was only able to play two actual tournaments before the whole epidemic hit and the only thing that gave me trouble were two Necron armies. Both running the DoomsDay build, with one slight variant on the first encounter and the second time around. It was a basic copy of the list in circulation.

My last open play match was 2000pts against a modified ancients of war, Iron Hands list.

I still find regular space marines to be much better than Primaris. Though I did have a full squad of Reavers completely stomp my front line in at one point. Then they tried taking Draigo down, with his support still in tow.

I never thought one melee engagement could last "that" damn long.

 Oborosen wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
They used to be one of the worst factions in the game period. Bad enough that even pre-codex orks felt pitty at them.

With CA19 point drops and PA boost they look to be better but with corona putting stop to tournaments early data to see how good and hindered by tournaments that did happen after PA being generally dominated by marines who were ridiculously broken. Still too good with nerfs but at least gap isn't as ridiculous.

Current state is harder to tell because there's no big tournaments out there and smaller local ones aren't that useful especially in few numbers and lots is hard to get with the corona.

I was only able to play two actual tournaments before the whole epidemic hit and the only thing that gave me trouble were two Necron armies. Both running the DoomsDay build, with one slight variant on the first encounter and the second time around. It was a basic copy of the list in circulation.

My last open play match was 2000pts against a modified ancients of war, Iron Hands list.

I still find regular space marines to be much better than Primaris. Though I did have a full squad of Reavers completely stomp my front line in at one point. Then they tried taking Draigo down, with his support still in tow.

I never thought one melee engagement could last "that" damn long.

It's interesting you say that, because while Necrons are conventionally one of the weakest books in the game atm (maybe the actual worst?), they match up well against marines, including GK.

I think they certainly can be top table worthy, as Lawrence from TTT has proven with his 6-0 before all this lockdown business. There are counters to GK's MW spam, but Marines are so ubiquitous that the meta is unlikely to shift so heavily in favour of anti-GK lists. Vehicle spam is your main concern, and that is more viable again now Imperial Fists have been nerfed somewhat.

Check out the Tactics thread:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/784891.page

But the short answer is GK are very good right now.

 greyknight12 wrote:
Check out the Tactics thread:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/784891.page

But the short answer is GK are very good right now.

Yes, I've seen the new PA listings and updates for GKs.

A lot of it looks really good. Though they've always been a heavy strike centric list, I've wanted some new toys for my heavy support, or maybe even a lord of war slot that I don't have to pay 120$ for.

My list usually has two Dreadnaughts, partnered with a VD. All in the same Hellfire configuration and buffing Astra Aim.

Too bad the relics list didn't actually change as much as I was hoping.

A big part of why you're probably not yet seeing GK doing better in general at tournaments yet, other than the obvious pandemic issues, is also due to them not being very popular in 8th. When SM became good after their last Codex the effect was magnified because pretty much everyone who's played 40k for any length of time will have a SM army sitting around somewhere, or at least a whole bunch of models to build to make one. Any serious tournament player will likewise probably have some Eldar stuff to hand because they've pretty much always been good.

That's not the case for GK but I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see them become much more popular once things start to return to normal. The current break from gaming might even allow people to build new GK armies. I think GK are going to be a strong choice for tournament players in the foreseeable future but we'll need to wait to see whether they are quite as good as a lot of people seem to think.