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I started playing around with builds for daemon army recently and decided to put some effort into a potential alpha strike list and would love some feedback

as it stands:

1 Blue Scribes 130

5 Flamers 175
5 Flamers 175
4 Fiends 120

10 Horrors w/ icon and bolt 205
10 Horrors w/ icon and bolt 205
10 Horrors w/ icon and bolt 205
9 Daemonettes 126
9 Daemonettes 126

5 Seekers 85
4 Screamers 64
4 Screamers 64

1 Soulgrinder w/ phlegm 160
1 Soulgrinder w/ phlegm 160

2000pts total

The idea is lots of fire from the horrors, flamers, and grinders with the bolts, screamers, and potentially grinders working on opening transports. I am hoping to drop the daemonettes, fiends, and seekers behind the firing line for cover and rushing (using fleet) into CC where the large number of attacks will optimistically finish off the now exposed troops. also if rolls are less than favorable the rending attacks can work nicely on the more lightly armed vehicles. any suggestions?

So, the term Alpha Strike suggests you aim to do devastating damage before your opponent gets to react. I think your list is not optimised enough to achieve that (if Daemons can even achieve an Alpha Strike idea competatively). What hampers Daemons enormously in any Alpha Strike battleplan is the fact that you only have half of your list in the first turn... Still, a shooty Daemons list could be viable.

I suggest the following for 2000 points, keeping in mind the basic theme of your list:

100 Herald of Tzeentch, Chariot, Bolt, MoS
100 Herald of Tzeentch, Chariot, Bolt, MoS
100 Herald of Tzeentch, Chariot, Bolt, MoS
130 Blue Scribes

105 3 Flamers
105 3 Flamers
190 6 Fiends, UM

100 5 Horrors, Bolt, Changeling
95 5 Horrors, Bolt
95 5 Horrors, Bolt
95 5 Horrors, Bolt
252 18 Daemonettes

48 3 Screamers

160 Soulgrinder, Phlegm
160 Soulgrinder, Phlegm
160 Daemon Prince, MoT, Bolt, Gaze

1995

The output in terms of quality fire is higher, the amount of serious threats is higher and you minimise weakness while maximising strength.
- the Flamers when used in a squad of 3 can fire when deepstriking (in larger squads you can't place templates without hitting your own models and this way the unit is cheap enough to deepstrike in a risky/potentialy suicidal position with maximum damage potential)
- Horrors are hardly needed for any-infantry fire with the Grinders, Flamers, Daemonettes and Fiends. You can minimise the squads for the Bolt (thus wasting less shots when you select Mechanised targets).
- Daemonettes are weak and fare well in large groups to be able to take some damage and remain effective.
- The DP adds BS 5 shooting and some counterassault
- 1 squad of Screamers will suffice since you have multiple ways to deal with armour allready (Bolts, Fiends, Grinders, Prince). 3 Screamers can be effective for last turn turboboost contesting for instance.

Good luck with the list.

Cilithan

hmmm.. really intresting Cilithians suggestion is actually pretty good, but how about when facing shooty armies like tau or IG
becouse they can just first kill your good assault units: daemonettes, DP, fiends and soulgrinder. and then just shoot you down.
but otherwise this is good list and wish you luck with it and by the way... can anyone tell me what blue scribes did

"in larger squads you can't place templates without hitting your own models"

I was under the impression that you never counted models in the same squad as "being in the way" so therefore they wouldn't be hit by their own squads flame attacks. Am I wrong on this?

What I had intended by the title alpha strike was just to get a heavy blow in early in the game (which is where the shooty daemons come in since they can drop in range and attack the turn they arrive). Also its very different from any list I've built before I've had a few shooting aspects but never as a main source of attack power, and the horde idea seemed pretty fun too. I usually tend toward assault heavy, MC heavy lists. I haven't actually had the chance to play a few of these units before (blue scribes and screamers) so I wasn't sure of how much they would contribute/how many it would take. Thanks for the advice. I will definitely look into it when amassing the rest of my force.

unforgiven- The blue scribes have every "spell" in the book. You can use 2 a turn but when using the second one you have to roll to determine if they get to go ahead with the second attack or if they use the first attack a second time. Also the tau marker lights might give some trouble to the assault units but the general idea is to try and get a cover save (for the nettes at least) behind the horrors

EdGuy- Unfortunately template weapons cannot be shot over any other models, one advantage with flamers (the unit) is that if you have patience and a good place to hide them they are jump infantry so they can get nice and close and also spread out a little before exposing their enemies to the warpstuff billowing out of their bodies, but that tactic doesn't lend itself too well to this particular build idea.

Well I realize that you cant very well shoot a flamer through another squad, but I was under the impression that members of a squad did not block LOS etc for the purposes of shooting.

I don't think that technically they block LOS they just cannot be fired across with template weapons so they effectively block it for the purposes of flame-type attacks.