Scott Ketcham’s 7-0 Adepta Sororitas took the Tennessee Open army lists crown over Tyranids and a T’au-heavy top 8.
Half of the Tennessee Open top 8 was T’au Empire, which pretty much paints the current Warhammer 40k meta in bright blue target-lock lines. Four T’au players finished 3rd through 6th, with a fifth still hanging around in the top 8 for good measure.
That said, the armies that actually beat them looked like they were playing a totally different mission pack. Ketcham’s Sisters of Battle Hallowed Martyrs list went undefeated at 7-0, Levi Hummon’s Tyranids Vanguard Onslaught finished 6-1 for 2nd place, and Aron Huckaba’s T’au Empire Auxiliary Cadre also went 6-1 to claim 3rd.
So yes, T’au is absolutely the headline faction here, but the more interesting story might be the two archetypes that managed to get past them. Hallowed Martyrs and Vanguard Onslaught are the top Warhammer 40k army lists worth studying right now, especially if you expect to see a lot of T’au across the table at your next event.
Tennessee Open: Top 8 Warhammer 40k Army Lists
Updated on April 28, 2026, by Rob Baer with the latest winning armies
- Sisters of Battle ran the table at 7-0: Ketcham’s Hallowed Martyrs list closed rounds 5 and 7 by one battle point apiece.
- Tyranids Vanguard Onslaught locked in 2nd place at 6-1: Hummon’s Infiltrate-heavy list lost only to Ketcham, and only by one point.
- T’au Auxiliary Cadre landed 3rd place with a 6-1 record: Huckaba’s Kroot-heavy “We Are Family” list turned the middle of every board into a traffic jam.
- T’au Empire dominated the top 8: four finishers landing 3rd through 6th, the faction’s biggest showing of the season.
- Hallowed Martyrs is the real attrition answer to T’au: the detachment that rewards losing models is the cleanest counter in the format right now.
Use these winning armies to sharpen your own lists alongside the latest balance dataslate updates and points changes.
Thanks to Best Coast Pairings, we can walk back through the whole event with real pairings and battle point data.
Click this special promo link to save $20 on a year’s BCP subscription. And if you want to take your game to the next level, consider applying to Team USA to compete at the Warhammer World Team Championships.
Scott Ketcham’s Hallowed Martyrs Sisters Took the Crown With Pure Attrition
Ketcham’s winning Adepta Sororitas tournament list is a Hallowed Martyrs attrition machine, and it’s perfectly fine watching Sisters die on objectives as long as the scoreboard keeps ticking up. Morvenn Vahl leads three Paragon Warsuits with three multi-meltas and three war maces, giving the army one nasty package that melts armor on the way in, then finishes the job with war maces once it gets there.
Hallowed Martyrs Roster Breakdown
The characters are doing a lot of the heavy lifting here. A Canoness with Saintly Example, a Palatine with Through Suffering Strength, Junith Eruita, Daemonifuge, a Dialogus, and three Ministorum Priests all stack buffs into the midfield scrum, where this list really wants the game to happen.
The units taking the punches are also the ones where Hallowed Martyrs benefits the most. Ten Arco-flagellants plus a smaller three-model unit, two ten-model Celestian Insidiants squads, a ten-model Celestian Sacresants anvil, and a utility Sanctifiers squad all become more dangerous as the casualties pile up.
A Retributor Squad with four multi-meltas hangs back to crack the armor the Paragons can’t reach right away, while the Triumph of Saint Katherine keeps the middle of the table stitched together like a very angry, very holy support engine.
How Hallowed Martyrs Wins the Damage Race
Ketcham finished 7-0, but the closing stretch wasn’t exactly a victory lap. Two of those wins were closer than the rest, which is exactly where Hallowed Martyrs shine.
That’s because this kind of Sisters list doesn’t panic when the opponent finally lands a big turn-three punch. It expects to lose models, then turns those losses into more pressure, and keeps scoring through the mess. That’s what turned Ketcham’s Adepta Sororitas army from “solid event list” into a tournament winner.
Levi Hummon’s Vanguard Onslaught Tyranids Turned the Board Into a Movement Trap
The runner-up army list was just as committed to making their opponent miserable, but it did it from a totally different angle. Hummon’s Tyranids tournament list was a Vanguard Onslaught detachment, and it packed in just about every Infiltrate threat it could squeeze onto the roster.
Vanguard Onslaught Roster Breakdown
Three ten-model Genestealer squads, a Lictor, two Neurolictors, and two Hyperadapted Ravener units all start the game halfway up the board before turn one even gets a chance to exist.
Three Broodlords lead the melee rush, with the Warlord Broodlord carrying Neuronode to keep the command point engine humming. A ten-model Gargoyle squad fills the gaps where the Lictors can’t quite reach, while two five-model Ravener squads add even more fast, clawed nonsense into the middle of the table.
Then the list flips the script, theme-wise, with Two Tyrannofexes with Rupture cannons sitting in the backfield and punishing anything that tries to hold still, while Biovores handle secondary play without asking for much attention.
Why Vanguard Onslaught Breaks the Deployment Phase
Hummon’s 6-1 run went through five different opponents without a close call, because Vanguard Onslaught creates the kind of pre-game problem most armies just aren’t built to answer. His only loss came in round five against Ketcham, and if you’re spotting the pattern, that one also came down to the final scoring decision.
Everyone else got slowly strangled by the same Infiltrate sprawl that makes this detachment such a nightmare to play into. It doesn’t just threaten the mid-board. It starts there, then dares you to move, and then punishes whatever answer you thought you had.
Aron Huckaba’s Auxiliary Cadre T’au Used Kroot Bodies to Lock Down the Board
If Hummon’s Tyranids were a board-denial problem, Huckaba’s T’au army list was more like a full-blown road closure. Different bodies, same headache. His third-place Auxiliary Cadre roster, fittingly named “We Are Family,” leans hard into the Kroot side of the faction, with a name that brings it all full circle for the greater good.
Auxiliary Cadre Roster Breakdown
The detachment brings a serious Kroot crowd: two ten-model Kroot Carnivore squads, two six-model Krootox Rampager units, a two-model Krootox Riders unit, and five Kroot Hounds. That’s nearly half the army’s model count tied up in Kroot bodies, with a Kroot Lone-spear out front helping keep the whole warband moving.
Behind that wall is where the real T’au punishment starts. Two Hammerheads with Railguns, plus The Twin Lance, handle the anti-tank work, which matters a lot in a T’au mirror when the other side is packing Ghostkeels and Stormsurges. Huckaba also brings two Ghostkeels of his own with ion rakers and fusion blasters, giving him nasty mid-board pressure that can threaten your backfield if you blink at the wrong time.
Then come the units that actually turn all that disruption into points. The three ten-model Breacher Teams and two ten-model Pathfinder squads move in once the Kroot wall has made a mess of the board. Finally, two Ethereals, including one with the Warlord trait, help keep the aura support and command point engine running across the detachment.
How the Kroot Wall Buys Time for the Hammerheads
Well, Huckaba finished 6-1, with his only loss coming in round seven against Ketcham. But, everywhere else, the Kroot-heavy obstruction plan did exactly what it was supposed to do: jam up the table, slow down opposing pressure, and buy the Hammerheads enough time to start deleting the expensive stuff.
It worked especially well against the other T’au players because no one else seemed to have a cleaner answer to the combo of Kroot blockers and long-range anti-armor. That’s a rough puzzle to solve when your own game plan needs clean lanes, clean trades, and enough room to breathe.
Plus, twenty Krootox Rampagers spread across the middle of a GT table is basically an obstacle course your list probably didn’t pack enough bodies to clear.
Final Thoughts on the Tennessee Open Army Lists & the Warhammer 40k Meta
So what’s the big Warhammer 40k meta takeaway here? Well, four of the top 8 were T’au Empire. Huckaba at 3rd, Chris Edwards at 4th, Gage Birmingham at 5th, Mike Rolph at 6th. Half the top cut running the same faction at a GT with real teeth is about as clear a meta signal as you get without an FAQ.
The Tennessee Open pretty much answered the T’au question everyone’s been batting around, and it did it in the most useful way possible: with two different anti-T’au plans proving they can work on the same weekend.
Sure, T’au will keep showing up at GTs through the summer because the results hold up, but Hallowed Martyrs just showed the field exactly what Sisters can do at an event with real bite, and a 6-1 Vanguard Onslaught run is the kind of result that moves the meta faster than any Balance Dataslate or FAQ can.
See the Top Warhammer Army Lists & 40k Tournament Schedule for This Year
🔗 Related Reads:
- How to Play Sisters of Battle in 40k
- How to Play Tyranids in 40k
- How to Play T’au in 40k
- More Top Warhammer 40k Army Lists
- 40k Tournament Guide
- Latest 40k Balance Dataslate
- Munitorum Field Manual Points Updates
What do you think of the Tennessee Open army lists and the four-of-eight T’au showing in the top 8?
