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Once again, I participated in a tournament at my FLGS, Valhalla's Gate Games, located in my hometown of Columbia, MO, USA. Our turnout for the tournament was not too spectacular, as there were only 7 of us (luckily the TO brought an army in case of an odd number of players). The participating armies were Dark Angels (Mine!), Space Marines w/Grey Knights, Chaos Daemons w/CSM, Adepta Sororitas, Tau, Orks, Necrons, and Dark Eldar w/Eldar allies. Our points level was set at 1850, 2 detachments or formations maximum. The missions we were running were from the ATC Primer. Anyway, on to the games! First, my army list:

In all 3 games, I placed Ezekiel with the DW knights inside the land raider, the Sword librarian with the tactical squad inside the razorback, and the other two librarians and Azrael with the command squad in the drop pod. I also took the same psychic disciplines in each game, with Ezekiel taking Sanctic Daemonology, the sword libby taking Divination, the stave libby taking Telekinesis, and the axe libby taking Telepathy.

Game 1
Opposing Army: Orks
List:

Mission: ATC Primer Mission 1
Objectives: Progressive Objectives, Emperor's Will, Control the Center
Bonuses: First Blood, Slay the Warlord, Line Breaker
As the pictures below show, that's a lot of Orks! My army simply wasn't prepared for this! The only things I had on the table at start was my Land Raider, the two bike units, and the razorback. The rest of it was inside the vehicles and drop pod.

Worse, he used Da Finkin' Cap to get 2 strategic warlord traits and one of them let him infiltrate 3 units (with the warlord). As if it wasn't bad enough, he managed to sieze the initiative and go first (not that it really made a huge difference). On turn 1 he pretty much just moved up all his guys, with the Lootas taking out the Black Knights. He got first blood from that. On my turn 1, my drop pod came in behind one of his groups of shoota boyz. Azrael and friends let fly with their weapons, killing a few Orks in that shoota mob. The rest of my shooting wasn't that great; I took out a couple of boyz here and there but hardly made a dent in his numbers. On turn 2, his warboss called the Waaagh! and those mobs of boyz charged. The shoota boys that Azzy's group shot at last turn charged the Land Raider, hoping to wreck it with their power klaw. They only succeeded in knocking one hull point off of it. One of the stormboyz units hit Azrael's group, putting up a massive amount of attacks. The HoW attacks were mostly ineffective (iirc they only caused one wound on one of the libbys, partly due to the 5+++ FNP). Azrael challenged their Nob, but the cowardly Nob declined, putting him out of the fight. Azrael proceeded to smash a few of the stormboyz, and his fellows took out a few more, but they still got many attacks off. 22 of those attacks managed to wound, and we decided to roll the saves in groups. Ultimately, Azrael ended up tanking ALL 22 WOUNDS without a single wound getting through! It was unbelievable. I don't remember a lot of the rest of that game, other than that the rest of my army got messed up pretty badly in the following turns (my DW knights made a good accounting of themselves, killing quite a few boyz and stormboyz.), and ultimately I conceded the game at the end of the third turn (we were almost out of time anyway). Incredibly, Azrael's party still lived, managing to finish off the stormboyz that had attacked them earlier, but they were, alas, the only survivors, and they were about to get charged by another unit of boyz. It was a fun game, not quite as one-sided as I thought (although I scored no points at all for the mission). Azrael has to be the MVP for the game, as he took a lot of hits but managed to stand tall through them all.

Game 2
Opposing Army: Tau
List:

Mission: ATC Primer Mission 2
Objectives: Kill Points, Marked for Death, Escalated Slay the Warlord
Bonuses: First Blood, Linebreaker, Last Blood
At first, I thought that this was going to be a total clusterfeth. I mean, 4 RIPTIDES, SERIOUSLY!? But actually, this turned out being the most enjoyable game of the day for me. The three units I had marked for death were one of the broadside units and two of the skyrays. He marked my two bike units and my land raider. I went first, since he failed to sieze the initiative. My drop pod came in, scattering such that it was easily in range of the EWO-equipped battlesuits. Fortunately, only the two combi-melta guys bought it. Azrael and the rest scurried into a nearby ruin. This game, I made my psychic phase count. I can't remember exactly which turn everything happened on, but I do remember that one one turn, one of the Riptides, after failing his nova-charge roll, managed to fail three saves against my weapons. On the next turn, I finished it with a Psychic Shriek (after failing to achieve anything with this power on earlier turns). One of the skyrays was wounded twice by Objuration Mechanicum (and finished on turn 2 by the Deathwing Knights). Prescience managed to help my tactical squad kill a second riptide (with a little help from the Razorback's guns). The only problem was that my army was dying faster than his was even with the successes I had. Both bike units were wiped out by turn 2 (although the black knights killed a broadside, causing the other two to fail their morale check and run right off the board like pansies! ), and Azrael's unit, including the illustrious chapter master himself, died on turn 3 or 4 (can't remember which). Here are a couple of pictures I took during that game (sorry they don't reveal too much):

Ultimately, the only thing I scored in this game was linebreaker, which my only surviving unit (the DW knights with Zeke) achieved. I almost could have tied on the Marked for Death objective, as both boradside units (including the marked one) were dead and one of the marked skyrays was gone. The other marked skyray had only 1 hp left, but everything that could have hurt it was dead by that time (it was on the opposite side of the table from the knights). It was a fun game that could have gone either way, and both me and my opponent enjoyed it. I would definitely have to say the Deathwing knights were the men of the match for me. They killed a unit of broadsides, a sky ray, and a fire warrior squad by themselves, while only losing one of their number to enemy fire (overwatch from the fire warriors).

Game 3
Opposing Army: Space Marines w/Grey Knight Allies
List:

Mission: ATC Primer Mission 3
Objectives: Modified Relic, Modified Crusade: Progressive Objectives, Kill Points
Bonuses: First Blood, Slay the Warlord, Line Breaker
This game was doomed from the start. I had played this list before in a casual game (at least a very similar list) with this opponent (who was the TO). Like the casual game, I got pretty well smashed. My army simply cannot handle a Gravstar. There really isn't much to tell about this game, mostly it involved me picking stuff up off the table and having my units run and hide so that they wouldn't be next to be killed. I did nearly win the Relic objective. I lost the relic on the very last turn (that plucky librarian with the force sword finally got singled out and squished by the gravstar). I admit I did make some stupid mistakes. I used Azrael's unit to camp an objective rather than having them go on the offense. A beatstick unit like that should have been out on the field doing stuff instead of hiding in the woods. Admittedly, they might not have accomplished much against an invisible gravstar, but at least their deaths would have had meaning. At the end of the game, they tried to come to the rescue of the relic-bearing librarian, but they rolled poorly on their run move and fell short.

The picture shows the last stand of Azrael's brave command squad. The only major thing I accomplished was killing a Dreadknight early on (netting me First Blood!). Otherwise, I did manage to bag 2 of the grav centurions, and the land raider managed to mulch most of the tactical squad before the other dreadknight blew it up. Like the first game, Azrael rolled pretty well, taking more damage than he should have been able to take without dying. 2+ armor, 4+ invuln, and 5+ FNP is a pretty solid combo! I will definitely try that again!

Overall, in spite of getting my brains kicked in (again!), I did have a lot of fun. It was the first time I had ever even seen a Sisters army (although I didn't end up facing it). I have now officially come to the conclusion that even in local tournaments, my Dark Angels are simply not very competitive (but they are fun to play, and I definitely will try out the conclave again, at least in casual games!). Hopefully my Khorne Daemonkin army will be ready in time for next month's tournament!
Here's a bonus picture I took after my third game was over, showing the Dark Eldar/Eldar player facing the Necron player's Wraith spam list:

Please excuse the quality of the photos, and the lack of them, as I kept forgetting to take them and my iPod touch camera is not the greatest.
Thanks for reading!