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I am intrigued by the idea of running Disciples but have no idea if they can be competitive by themselves.

Does anyone have any suggestions for the dilemma I am facing?

You would need lots of daemons. Examples are 20+ plaguebearers, 20+ bloodletter bombs, 20+ pink horrors which split. Each unit would need a daemonic icon, and be within 6" of a csm unit, in order to use the mortal boon stratagem which allows you to auto pass moral on a roll of 1, to bring back D6 models with the icon. The csm would need to cover ranged attacks with havocs, obliterators, terminators. A big blob of termis can be buffed with the shadow pact stratagem. Is that enough to make them competitive ? I dont know.

I was thinking running them as a Patrol and pairing them up with a Legion that has tricks and survivability. Alpha Legion was my first thought.

Its irrelevant what legion you choose, because your csm dont benefit from their legion trait, and they cannot use legion specific stratagems, warlord traits, relics. They can use DOB stratagems, and get the disciples of shadows ability.