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After returning home from SpaceCity Con GT, and a good night's sleep. I began to evaluate my games as a whole-where I screwed up, what I did right, etc.

My bugs, I felt, did me a solid. Finishing 8th out of 34 surely is not horrible. I really wanted to bring Daemons but, I procrastinated on the painting (again) and yeah....

So anyway, to the point, of the 6 rounds I went first twice (go dice go!) and that especially put me behind into instant catch-up mode as three of those "went second" games most of my MCs were badly wounded and had already given up First Blood and Warlord (again go dice go ). If I had gone first half or most of my games, very likely there would have been different outcomes. I know the Dice Gods are fickle and there is nothing I can do about poor averages except stay away from Vegas, but I thought about, "what IF I had brought my Daemons?" Largely I think the outcome may have ended the same. Eventhough my bugs and daemons are two very different lists, they have a few similarities: relying on aggression and CC, using psychic powers for buffs and debuffs, and using positioning to set up charges and give me something more than invuls (or lack thereof) to keep me safe. Both these armies are very susceptible to the alpha strike to weaken them.

In my daemon list I've got about 400ish points I can play with to adjust as I need/want. I looked to allies for some help and I saw that DE and Crons had ways to help lessen the alpha strike potential-but both these options are Desperate Allies. DE have The Baron giving me a +1 and Vect giving me a 4+ steal. Crons have Stormlord giving me a 4+ steal as well .

Anyways, for discussion, do you think it's worth the Desperate Ally hit (200-400 points worth) and loosing some Scoring and /or denial space in the process all for a better chance to go first when I need /want to? And if so which is more worth it's cost +1 to dice roll or steal on 4+?

Short Answer: No

Imotekh's lightning hits his allies, so he is out.
The DE would add very little as vect is colossally expensive and baron loses many of his advantages.

Not going first can be mitigated with solid deployment.

Probably not worth all those points for allies, but going first is indeed important.

I had a friend back in 5th who played orks (I was running SW, but not a DP heavy variant, more mixed), and had trukks filled with the suckers. We played 5 or 6 games, and I literally didn't go first in any of them, because I couldn't win a roll-off (the one time I did he seized the initiative).

Trukks go, he's getting 4+ cover saves and making all the important rolls of that too (any vehicle destroyed results, that is). Next turn orks fly out of everywhere and slam into my army. I imagine that if I'd gone first my LFs could have popped a couple of them and given me the advantage.

But hey, it is what it is, and you do what you can. If you added allies, you'd probably reduce the strength and definitely the synergy of your list overall, so it's probably not worth it.

If you went 2nd 4/6 times and still finished 8th overall, that means you still did really well.