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Well, I went and did it again. I played in another tournament at my FLGS, Valhalla's Gate Games, using my same old Dark Angels. I must be a glutton for punishment or something (actually I don't have another army ready for play yet, but that'll change soon...). Anyway, we actually had a pretty decent turnout this time, with 12 players (although 3 of them dropped out after the second round with various emergencies (nothing serious I hope!) and another dropped out so we would have an even number. The armies that came this time were: Dark Angels (me), Grey Knights, Blood Angels with Grey Knights, Space Marines (White Scars), Necrons, Eldar, Eldar with Dark Eldar, Tyranids, AdLance Knights w/Daemon Factory, Tau, Khorne Daemonkin, and Khornekin w/Chaos Space Marines. We used the same missions (from the Adepticon primer) as last time (see my earlier battle report-link to come later). My list was as follows:

Here is a picture of my army arrayed for battle before the first game:

So with that, on to the games! I should warn you now: I did pretty badly and so my memory of these games is pretty lousy, so bear with me if it seems like this batrep is woefully lacking in detail and pictures.
Game 1
Opponent: Eldar
Opponent's List:

This first game was probably my best game of the day, so that should tell you something. I went first, with my scouts deployed in a ruin and everything else lined up in a nice little gunline (my opponent did the same with his deployment), except for the small bike squad which was in outflank reserves. My terminators dropped in right in front of two of the windrider squads and the fire prisms. Their weapons fire was unfortunately lacking in results as only 2 jetbikes went down. The black knights managed to fire at and destroy 2 more (in one of the other squadrons). They unfortunately passed their leadership tests. On my opponent's turn, he advanced his wave serpents, although one of them became immobilized when it parked in some trees. The wraithguard disembarked from them and proceeded to mow down the typhoon and the landraider (which exploded, but no one died in the blast) with their mighty D-weapons. This left them facing some very pissed-off deathwing knights. The wraithknight was actually ineffective with its shooting the whole game (much to the consternation of my opponent). My biker librarian tried and failed to cast Psychic Shriek on the Wraithknight (actually the spell went off but I could only manage a 9 on 3d6 ), but did cast shrouding on the black knights he was riding with. On the second turn, the deathwing knights charged and managed to kill 3 wraithguard (1 fell to overwatch) and the 2 remaining in the unit fled. The other unit (with the D-scythes) killed more of the knights in revenge. Sammael managed to finish off the last jetbiker in the squad that got attacked by the deathwing, but was, alas, killed by the Fire Prisms (they had already killed 4/5 terminators last turn with a little help from the scatbikes). The surviving terminator charged and smacked one of the fire prisms, but couldn't kill it even with his powerfist. The Wraithknight took 2 wounds, but I can't for the life of me remember who did it. The game ended at turn 2 since we both played glacially slow (kept looking stuff up since the eldar codex is pretty new, etc.) and we ran out of time. I would have liked to see the game go longer, although it was pretty much decided by that point. I think the points total was a 6-27 loss for me (we tied control the center since neither of us had units near there!). It was a fun game, and it did give me a first hand experience of how brutal the new Eldar are (even though it wasn't a super cheesy list). My terminator units were probably the best in this game, since they took an inordinate amount of firepower to kill (my opponent kept saying how he hated terminators, despite the fact that he was running the most OP codex in the game!).

Game 2
Opponent: Tyranids
Opponent's List:

This game had clusterfeth written all over it. The one universal bane to Dark Angels is flying stuff, and this list had 5 FMCs in it. I was doomed. There isn't much to tell about the early part of the game, as mostly it just involved me rolling a few dice and picking stuff up off the table. I did manage to bag one unit of gargoyles with the DW knights and cause a few wounds to a couple of the flyers (with the predator, no less!), but they passed their grounding tests. The real hero of the game was probably Sammael. He managed to pop the Tyrannocyte pod and avoid becoming lunch for the bugs until turn 6 (at which point I was officially tabled). To accomplish this, I kept his vulnerable rear facing a ruin. It was turn 6 where my last DW knight bit the dust (in combat with the genestealer broodlord after all the other genestealers were butchered) and Sammael was surrounded by big scary bugs, who managed to finally end his streak of lucky saves. This game was a foregone conclusion from the beginning (I scored 0, big surprise there...), but I didn't imagine I would last until turn 6. I at least made my opponent work for it! Below are a couple of pictures of this game:

The left picture shows the combat where the DW knights made their stand. The picture on the right shows Sammael with his back to the wall, gamely pouring shots into the flying bugs.

Game 3
Opponent: Eldar/Dark Eldar
Opponent's List:

Dang it, Eldar again?! Maybe if those 4 players hadn't left the tourney early, I might have gotten an easier opponent. Oh well, nothing for it I suppose. My opponent put the DE Archon with the Wraithguard in the serpent so that they could deepstrike with the WWP. Like the other 2 games, I outflanked the small bike squad. It proved useful later, but ultimately wasn't enough. My Black Knights got their butts handed to them on turn 1 in spite of everything (sheer weight of fire from the venom and non-scat bikes). I'm starting to wonder why I even bring them. Anyway, my termies did their magical musical DW assault thing and managed to kill...3 kabalite warriors (such horrible shooting, but admittedly the warriors were in cover and went to ground). The warriors passed their leadership and held it together. The wraithknight charged the librarian (he had survived the black knights dying all around him), but amazingly failed to kill him. My opponent had made the infernal thing invisible with one of his several psykers (just what wraithknights need... ). As a result, when the DW knights charged him from their land raider, they failed to hit him even once (thus wasting their precious smite mode). However, they did manage to tarpit him for a couple of turns, which is good since he was near the relic. My Ravenwing bikers managed to kill the non-scat bikes, allowing them to secure one of the crusader objectives. The outflanking bikes managed to kill the two remaining kabalite warriors but were not close enough to secure the objective they had been holding. The game really went south once my opponent's reserves came in. Those wraithguard killed the predator and the land raider (on a later turn), and the flyers killed a bunch of my bikers and the regular DW termies. By the end, only the outflanking bikes, Sammael, and three of the scouts still stood when I conceded the match (at the end of turn 4). I had failed to even inflict a single wound on the Wraithknight, but both venoms and several jetbikes were dead, as well as one of the wraithguard (he did a look out, sir when the archon took a hit from the land raider on turn 3). While I didn't do quite as badly as game 2, it was still pretty bad.

This picture is from the beginning of turn 1, during my opponent's move phase (he went first after I failed to sieze the initiative).

Overall, I think this put the final nail in the coffin for my Dark Angels. Until they get a new codex, I'm not going to even try running them competitively again. That said, I had fun, since it is just a game after all, and I did see some cool stuff at the tournament (one guy had some pretty darn good looking grey knights). The other people at the tournament agreed that the army was probably my biggest handicap, but did tell me that I could expect to lose a fair amount anyway because I am new. They did encourage me to keep trying and not give up (not that I was about to do that!). I am hoping that I will have better luck when I run Khornekin (next month unless something very disastrous happens).
Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment!

Thanks for sharing. It is a hard pill to swallow at times as there is disparity between books, and then even more disparity between army builds. Your army looks to be a fun and more casually played army while some of your opponents, while perfectly legal and fine armies, are much more optimized and can lead to some lopsided games. It happens.

Best of luck in the future. Glad you still enjoyed yourself; I think 90% of an enjoyable game comes down to whom you game with, so that looks to be a big plus for you as you.