The Dark Angels Credit system

I recently re-acquired a Raven wing army, that I bought originally, sold, re-bought, resold, and bought it back again.  Here is the thing that is getting me, and it actually kind of makes me a little upset.  For some reason, nobody gives the Dark Angels any credit.  I'm going to go further into the schpeal that I feel is the reasons why the army is not only viable but something to be relatively afraid of when seen at a tournament game.

Here is the beginning of the reasoning.  THEY ARE FLIPPING FAST!  Not just kind of fast, but outrageously so.  The regular bikes have scout moves which kinda makes them a little quicker than the regular biker, the drawback to their scouting, they can not turbo boost on their scout moves.  I know that that alone doesn't make them a viable army, but there is more than them just being in your face turn 1.

Coming in a close second in my opinion, is their squad makeup.  They get a Sergent stock, with 2 bikers.  Then can add in another 3 bikes for 100 points.  Once we get past that, they have the ability to take an 80 point 2 wound single model unit attack bike, with a multi-melta.  Seems good right, it gets better because they can take a 100 point land speeder for yet more guns armed with an assault cannon, and a heavy bolter.  That seems not so bad.  But here is the kicker, at 2000 points, I run 4 troop choices, and a whopping 12 scoring units!   Thats right boys and girls, the whole army scores.  Those speeders, that most people do not worry about, yeah those are troops, so they are scoring.  That attack bike by its self, yeah it is scoring.  OH WAIT!  I can still combat squad putting me up to an enormous 16 scoring untis!  Can you say a little bit ridiculous?!  Because I can!

All in all, while no one gives this army credit, for the most part taking it to a tournament, is not that bad of an Idea.  The whole of the army minus the HQ's that you take (in my case it is a toss up between a chaplain on a bike, and a Librarian on a bike) and if you do it right, then you can throw down an extra speeder with assault cannon and melta, score.   And let me tell you there are far to many of these guys that just pass this army off for not worth anything.  All in all, I urge others to look into what they can do with their old Codex.  Sometimes they can surprise you.