Gwenn Godfrey’s 6-0 T’au Empire took the Smite Club Open 2026 army lists crown over a 6-0 Deathwatch Space Marines wall.
Unfortunately, neither of the top armies played each other for the title. Godfrey ran the table with T’au Empire, Travis Finell did the same with Deathwatch, and across six rounds and 130 registered players, the Swiss pairings never matched them up.
So a tiebreaker decided who qualified for the 2026 World Championships of Warhammer, rather than the two undefeated players settling it themselves. It would have been a super-intense game.
But there’s still one more list to check out: Alex Spathopoulos, who spent the first four rounds planted on Table One with Renegade Raiders. Compared to last year’s Smite Club Open, this field was wide open.
Smite Club Open 2026: Top 3 Warhammer 40k Army Lists
- Two undefeated players finished 6-0, and the pairings never once put them across a table: Godfrey and Finell both went the full six rounds without dropping a game, so a tiebreaker handed out the Worlds invite instead of a game.
- Five Commander-led battlesuit packages carried the winning T’au list through all six rounds: Farsight rides with one of them, and Godfrey’s worst round of the weekend still finished at 92 battle points.
- Deathwatch and Renegade Raiders fill out the rest of the top 40k army lists here: Finell’s Veterans never lost on Take and Hold, and Spathopoulos held Table One for four rounds running.
Thanks to Best Coast Pairings, we can walk back through the whole event with real pairings and battle point data.
Gwenn Godfrey’s Experimental Prototype Cadre T’au Turned Five Commanders Into Six Wins
Godfrey submitted this thing under the name “I’m going to pretend that I have real melee and sometimes Farsight delivers,” which is pretty telling of Tau in general. The army was an Experimental Prototype Cadre paired into Kauyon at 3 Detachment Points with the Reconnaissance disposition, and he crammed five separate Commander-led battlesuit packages at 2000 points.
Experimental Prototype Cadre Roster Breakdown
Commander Farsight is the warlord and joins a Crisis Sunforge unit, so that melta package goes wherever he needs it. Three Coldstar Commanders each lead another battlesuit unit, with two Starscythe bricks loaded with burst cannons and another Sunforge pack giving him a flexible second melta drop.
A Cadre Fireblade, 10 Breachers, and their support turret “stay home” while most of the army is busy somewhere else. Darkstrider handles the target-marking, and The Twin Lance adds another piece for the Reconnaissance build to move around.
Two Broadside Battlesuit units, armed with heavy rail rifles, hunt the big models. Knights and Land Raiders can’t just stroll up the middle while those guns are sitting there. Next, two Stealth Battlesuit teams carry Homing Beacons for the deep strikes, two Vespid Stingwing units chase objectives, Kroot Carnivores screen the drop zones, and a Devilfish gives Godfrey something else that can get where it needs to be, fast.
How Experimental Prototype Cadre Wins the Movement Phase
Godfrey never gave anybody much room to breathe. He started with a 100-49 win, then won the T’au mirror 100-67. He beat Blood Angels, who lost 99-64 in Round 3, and Emperor’s Children went down 100-73 in Round 4.
The last two rounds were closer, but not by much. Chaos Daemons lost 92-78 in Round 5, and Necrons went down 93-79 in the Round 6 title game. Six wins, 584 battle points, and his lowest score all weekend was 92.
Travis Finell’s Bastion Task Force Deathwatch Went Undefeated but Still Lost the Title
Finell won all six games played, as his Bastion Task Force had a Librarius Conclave bolted on while playing Take and Hold. Shockingly (or unshockingly with those Librarians), nobody managed to hand it a loss all weekend.
Bastion Task Force Roster Breakdown
Six separate Deathwatch Veteran units kept it real; the big one is a 10-model squad with four Deathwatch Hammers, two Infernus Heavy Bolters, two Frag Cannons, and a Black Shield. The Librarian warlord rides with them, carrying Temporal Corridor, while the other five are 5-model kill teams with Xenophase blades and shields on the sergeants.
Two Fortis Kill Teams sit in the middle of all that, each with three Plasma Incinerators, a Superkrak Launcher, and a Vengor Launcher. Both get an attached Librarian too, one with Fusillade and the other with Hero of the Chapter.
Then two Rhinos shove the smaller Veteran squads forward, two Assault Intercessor squads with Jump Packs go grab whatever opens up, and the Incursors and Infiltrators make getting behind him miserable. The Incursors bring a Haywire Mine, while the Infiltrators have a Comms Array and Helix Gauntlet. On Take and Hold, once Finell gets all of that spread across the board, you can’t do much to stop the scoring.
How Bastion Task Force Wins the Objective Game
The first four rounds were rough for everybody across the table. Necrons lost 93-57, Adeptus Custodes got rolled 98-23, Adepta Sororitas fell 100-46, and Custodes went down 100-20 in Round 4. Finell even hit 100 battle points in back-to-back rounds.
Chaos Daemons finally made him work for it in Round 5, dragging the score down to 76-68. That’s the only game where Finell finished below 90 all weekend, but then went right back to business against Space Marines in Round 6, winning 95-52 and finishing on 562 battle points.
Alex Spathopoulos’s Renegade Raiders Chaos Space Marines Camped Table One for Four Rounds
Spathopoulos landed on Table One in Round 1 and didn’t leave until Round 5. His list is called “Yarhar Fiddle-Dee-Dee, being a pirate sounds alright to me!” so, yeah, we’re pretty deep into Red Corsairs territory here. Renegade Raiders turning up again after the Mountain West Classic is starting to look familiar in the 11th Edition Meta.
Renegade Raiders Roster Breakdown
Huron Blackheart takes the warlord slot with Masters of the Maelstrom and a Chosen unit attached. That’s a unit that can take out about anything on the table it needs to, honestly.
The heavier stuff is a Defiler, a Lord Discordant on Helstalker carrying Dread Reaver, and Vashtorr the Arkifane, with a Warpsmith keeping the walkers going. The new Red Corsairs rules gave this kind of build plenty more to work with,
After that, they filled out the list with all kinds of support units. Two Chaos Rhinos, Chaos Bikers with a power fist champion, Raptors, Red Corsairs Raiders with a meltagun, Fellgor Beastmen, and a Cultist Mob give Spathopoulos something to throw onto pretty much every useful part of the table. Two allied Noise Marine squads with a pair of Blastmasters each bring the ranged damage the detachment otherwise doesn’t have.
How Renegade Raiders Win the Board Control Fight
Round 1 was the closest game any of the top three played. Spathopoulos beat Grey Knights 92-89 on Table One, just three battle points separating them in the first round. Death Guard lost 74-62 after that, Orks went down 80-75, and Tyranids lost 91-74 in Round 4.
Jacob Wagner’s Necrons finally got him in Round 5, winning 77-65 and knocking Spathopoulos off Table One. Wagner then went on to face Godfrey for the title in Round 6. Spathopoulos closed out his weekend with an 85-74 win over Chaos Daemons, which kept him in third.
Final Thoughts on the Smite Club Open 2026 Army Lists & the Warhammer 40k Meta
Overall, the Smite Club Open gave us three top lists that barely look like they’re trying to play the same game. Godfrey spent six rounds moving Commander-led battlesuit packages wherever they hurt most, Finell flooded the board with Deathwatch units that were miserable to shift, and Spathopoulos just kept hanging onto Table One until somebody finally knocked him off.
Now we get to see whether that five-Commander T’au build has legs outside this event. If copies start popping up at the next few majors, people clearly saw something worth stealing. If it disappears just as quickly, somebody probably found the matchup or counter that keeps it in check.
Either way, we’ll have a much better idea soon of where every faction sits in the overall 40k tier list.
đź”— Related Reads:
- How to Play T’au Empire
- How to Play Deathwatch
- 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 Smite Club Open 2026 army lists?
