Liam Vsl’s Drukhari ran the table at a perfect 8-0 to take the Warhammer Open Dallas army lists crown over Chaos Space Marines and Dark Angels.
The top 8 at the Warhammer Open Dallas had eight different factions in it, which is about as open as any 298-player Warhammer 40k meta gets. Drukhari, Chaos Space Marines, Dark Angels, and Chaos Daemons all ran the pairings at 6-0 to make the championship bracket.
That’s when the bracket sorted them out, though. Liam Vsl’s Drukhari won the whole thing without dropping a game, Ben Jurek’s Chaos Space Marines took 2nd, and Kit Smith Hanna’s Dark Angels ground out 3rd. No single faction owned this one, and the army everybody keeps watching for, T’au Empire, never cracked the top 8 at all.
So the three lists at the top are all worth breaking down because they each got there in completely different ways. One was built for speed, one was built for durability, and the last was built for all-out ranged power, outshooting three different T’au players.
Here are the top Warhammer 40k army lists to study coming out of Dallas.
Warhammer Open Dallas: Top 8 Warhammer 40k Army Lists
Updated on May 28, 2026, by Rob Baer with the latest winning armies
- Drukhari ran the Warhammer Open Dallas table at a flawless 8-0 finish: Liam Vsl’s Reaper’s Wager list only had one close game all weekend.
- Chaos Space Marines took 2nd with Abaddon leading a wall of daemon engines: Ben Jurek went 7-0 before running into the champion in the final.
- Dark Angels Ironstorm beat three different T’au players on the way to 3rd place: Kit Smith Hanna won two of those games by single digits.
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.
Liam Vsl’s Reaper’s Wager Drukhari Cut Through the Field at a Perfect 8-0
The Dallas GT champion came over from Team Belgium, and his Reaper’s Wager Drukhari list is a 2000-point pile of fast, fragile bodies that wants the game decided before the opponent finishes deploying. Lady Malys takes the Warlord slot, and the character bench around her is a who’s who of Aeldari killers: Drazhar, Lelith Hesperax, a Solitaire, and a Troupe Master carrying the Archraider enhancement.
The Harlequins are a quiet “tell” about this list’s plan, honestly. Alongside the Drukhari core of Kabalite Warriors, two Wych squads, and an Incubi escort, Liam folds in a Troupe riding a Starweaver, so the list has even more threats that can be anywhere on the board by turn two. All the while, a Cronos hangs back for pain tokens while everything else looks for a throat.
Overall, the mobility is the part that does the work with two Reaver squads, ten Hellions, and three Venoms, giving him board control that most armies cannot match, and two Scourge units split their guns between haywire and dark lances, so the anti-tank does not dry up when the transports start popping.
How a Wall of Transports Wins the Game Before Turn One
Liam went 8-0, and seven of those eight games were over by 40 or more battle points. From the jump, he opened 95-39 against Tyranids, then put up 90, 92, and 92 through rounds two to four against Imperial Knights, Deathwatch, and Thousand Sons.
His only sweaty game was round five, an 85-77 win over Justin Moore’s Space Marines, and after that, the bracket was a formality. He closed out Derrick Ramsey’s Chaos Daemons 89-36 in the semifinal, then manhandled Jurek’s Chaos Space Marines 83-39 in the final.
When a Drukhari list gets to dictate the pace like this, the close games just stop happening altogether.
Ben Jurek’s Pactbound Zealots Chaos Built a Wall of Daemon Engines for 2nd
Ben Jurek, currently with the Art of War, named his list “Crabs rule everything around me,” and once you see the roster, you’ll understand why. This Pactbound Zealots Chaos Space Marines list is built on walkers, with Abaddon the Despoiler leading from the front and Vashtorr the Arkifane bringing his own brand of daemon-engine support.
Three Defilers, two Venomcrawlers, a Helbrute, and two Predator Destructors give Jurek a backfield full of “crabs”, guns, and a midfield full of hard-hitters, almost all of them stamped with the Mark of Nurgle for staying power. A Traitor Enforcer with an Ogryn and a single Cultist Mob round out the bodies that hold the ground.
Overall, it’s a slow, mean gunline that also happens to brawl, and against most of the field, that combination is a problem nobody could solve quickly enough.
Why a Yard Full of Walkers Is So Hard to Get Off Objectives
Jurek went 7-0 before the final. He opened 100-37 on T’au, posted a 100-29 round-six game against a Genestealer Cult, and even won the ugly ones, grinding out a 52-42 result against Imperial Knights when the dice may have gone cold.
His semifinal was a 77-57 win over Hanna’s Dark Angels, which set up the title game against the only player having a better weekend than he was. The 39-83 loss to Liam in the final was his single blemish, and it only took an 8-0 Drukhari list from the champ to make it happen.
Kit Smith Hanna’s Ironstorm Dark Angels Out-Gunned Three Different T’au Lists
Kit Smith Hanna of Tundra Tactics brought an Ironstorm Spearhead Dark Angels list, which is a fancy way of saying he showed up with a parking lot. Lion El’Jonson takes the Warlord slot next to Azrael, and two Techmarines ride along to keep the armor running, because Ironstorm is the detachment that makes vehicles the whole game plan.
Three Land Speeder Vengeance, a Ravenwing Darkshroud, a Redemptor Dreadnought, a Stormraven Gunship, and a Vindicator give Hanna more firepower than most armies can answer, all of it able to reposition every turn. A Captain in Gravis armor, a Lieutenant, and a small Assault Intercessor squad with jump packs handle the objective work that the tanks are too busy to do.
It is the opposite of the Drukhari plan. Where Liam wants chaos and speed, Hanna wants a disciplined firing line that deletes a unit a turn and dares you to walk into it.
How Ironstorm Turned Three T’au Games Into Wins
Hanna went 6-0 through the Swiss, and the draw kept handing him T’au. He beat Gregory Hill’s T’au 90-50 in round three, ground past Steven Salazar’s T’au 42-33 in a low-scoring round four, then survived Hogan Franklin’s T’au 89-87 in round six, a two-point finish that could have gone either way.
The man clearly likes living dangerously, because his round five was a 78-77 win over Astra Militarum decided by a single battle point. Jurek finally caught him 77-57 in the semifinal, but Hanna bounced back to take third place with a 100-69 win over Derrick Ramsey’s Chaos Daemons.
Final Thoughts on the Warhammer Open Dallas Army Lists & the Warhammer 40k Meta
So at the 2026 Dallas Open, Drukhari took it at 8-0, Chaos Space Marines finished 2nd, Dark Angels 3rd, and Chaos Daemons 4th, and all four of them went 6-0 through the Swiss before the bracket split them up. The weird thing was that the faction most people would have picked to be here, T’au, did not make the top 8 at all. Its best finish was Noah Keeth in 13th.
Plus, the two lists at the very top could not have less in common. Liam’s Drukhari wins by refusing to sit still, throwing twenty fast units across the table so the opponent never gets a comfortable turn. Hanna’s Ironstorm Dark Angels wins by doing the exact opposite, planting a gunline and trading one unit a turn until the math runs out. Which, honestly, is how you end up winning games by one and two battle points and still call it a good plan.
Going into the next Warhammer Open stop, the takeaway is that there is essentially no single army to beat right now, just a handful of very different ones that all work. So, if you are building for your next GT, the question is: “Do you want to build for speed, durability, or volume?” Because Dallas just proved all three can run the table.
🔗 Related Reads:
- How to Play Drukhari
- How to Play Chaos Space Marines
- How to Play Dark Angels
- Top Warhammer 40k Army Lists
- More Top Warhammer 40k Army Lists
- 40k Tournament Guide
- Warhammer 40k Factions Guide
- Latest 40k Balance Dataslate
- Munitorum Field Manual Points Updates
What do you think of the Warhammer Open Dallas army lists and an eight-faction top 8 with no T’au in sight?
