The Posting Madness Continues! Daemons as Allies

As I said before, I have been set on using Chaos Daemons as allies for a while, but I have been unable to come up with a finalized detachment. This is what I'm currently looking at:

HQ

Herald of Khorne w/ Greater Locus of Fury, Lesser Reward- 85 pts.

TROOPS

19x Bloodletters; Bloodreaper- 205 pts.

19x Plaguebearers w/ Icon of Chaos (Plague Banner); Plagueridden- 205 pts.

TOTALS

POINTS- 495
HQ- 1 (17%)
ELITE- 0 (0%)
TROOPS- 2 (82%)
FAST ATTACK- 0 (0%)
HEAVY SUPPORT- 0 (0%)

This configuration brings several things to the party. First off, the Herald of Khorne gives Rage to his Bloodletter unit. His Lesser Reward will just be an Axe of Khorne, I'm not even going to bother rolling. This will make him a challenge ace, with an AP 2 weapon and Instant Death on a to-wound roll of 6 (basically what would be Killing Blow in WHFB). Many characters with a much higher point total will be afraid to challenge him. As stated before in a previous article, 20 Bloodletters charging in with 3 attacks each and Strength 5 will make short work of pretty much any squad they touch. at WS 5 they'll be needing 3+ to hit, and 3+ to wound against most enemies, so why bother with the re-rolls for Hatred when it's a more expensive Locus?

Next up are the Plaguebearers. With their less than stellar Toughness of 4 (for a Nurgle unit) and Slow and Purposeful they don't look like too much until you consider their cover save. With a 3+ against anything without Ignores Cover (due to the Shrouding provided by their cloud of flies you see) and even better, a 2+ in ruins, these things are perfect for grabbing and babysitting objectives. They also carry Defensive Grenades and bear Plagueswords, which will shred vehicles with their ability to glance any vehicle on an armor penetration roll of a 6.

What are the downsides to this detachment?

Well, for starters, this leaves my army with no real anti-aircraft capability. Even though it can Vector Strike enemy aircraft, the Daemon Prince wants to be in melee hacking things into tiny bits (1d6+7 Strength 9 AP 2 attacks on the charge against ground targets vs. 1d3+1 Strength 6 AP 3 against flying targets). What, then, do I do?

Soul Grinder. it has a Harvester Cannon that it can fire at passing planes with 3 Strength 7 shots. Marked by Nurgle it has the same 2+ cover save as the Plaguebearers. With a Phlegm Bombardment (Basically a 36" Battle Cannon) it can hang back and tear MEQ units and the like to bits. It's a great all-rounder, but it takes away my Plaguebearers. With the Mark of Nurgle and a Phlegm Bombardment it comes to 180 points, a 25 point savings over the Plaguebearers. But it can not score.

I've discussed other options elsewhere, such as deleting my Plaguebearer pack in exchange for a Heldrake. This leaves me with:

FAST ATTACK

Heldrake- 170 pts.

ALLIED HQ

Herald of Khorne w/ Greater Locus of Fury, Lesser Reward- 85 pts.

ALLIED TROOPS

19x Bloodletters w/ Icon of Chaos (Banner of Blood); Bloodreaper w/ Lesser Reward- 235 pts.

This leaves me with 10 points to give either my Chaos Lord, or more likely my Daemon Prince the Gift of Mutation so that he starts the game with a Chaos Boon in order to enhance his killing capability.

I'm torn, and this may not be resolved until just before I place the order for my reinforcements.