It all depends on what kind of game you are playing. If it is a casual game where you want to try things out then this list may work. But since your opponent is fielding the emperor himself Im guessing its not that casual.
Since he is fielding the emperor he cannot have a wizard lord and if you take a Slann instead of one Oldblood you will pretty much dominate the magic phase and hurt him alot. The best lore is by far the lore of Life. With the focused rumination and focus of mystery you can really make your oppenent cry.
Plus he will be fielding warmachines and you could either make your slann invunarable to any non magical attack or give him a 2+ wardsave against all ranged. Wery handy to not get killed in the second round by a canonball. Keep in mind that if he field a Steamtank and you have not picked lore of Metal or lore of Death you have an enemy that you cannot harm and he cannot lose with it. It will be a pain in the a**. You can still put a wound on it but it is highly unlikely and you will tie up at least one unit with it that will lose in the end. Your lucky if you just lose one unit to that blasted thing.
Magic is your only weapon that is effective and one good hit will bring it to a halt. I always use lore of Metal against empire because, without it your done for. Its a pretty bad lore unless you play against a Steamtank.
If you thinking of using shadow with pit of shades its has no effect on the tank for some reason I do not know. Shadow would have been a great choise otherwise. He will most likely put Karl Franz in a unit and with the final magic in lore of metal his magic resistance will not help his unit.
The Scar Vet works great with a Great weapon. He is so slow that any hero he is facing will strike before him and with T5 3+ armour and 4+ ward he will survive the most. And then hit back with S7. Its great but, the extra handweapon gives him one more attack if you are looking for killing units instead of heroes. He is nothing against Karl Franz but if you take Chakax, the emperor will die a swift death.
If you keep the skink priest put him in a unit of skinks and krox. If you have metal with your Slann you can shoot searing doom from the skink priest if he is within 24 inches of the slann. Then the steamtank have nowhere to run.
Core looks good. You could field your Slann alone and imune to everything but magic. Karl Franz will be on foot or on a horse. He will be on a pegasus if your unlucky. If he is on foot or on a horse he will be fairly simpel to avoid with your slann but if he rides a pegasus he will be tricky. If he gets to your Slann you will be in trouble. If your unsure, just put him i a Temple Guard unit and he will have all the protection he needs. Maybe just put a +2 ward save against connonballs. Just to be sure.
If you take TG you can skip one saurus unit and give the skinks some krox. That should get you over the minimum of core you need. The small ranked skink unit is great if you want fast rank breakers but against empire he will just shoot it down and get the points. Remember that skirmishers cannot be rankbreakers and skinks are pretty bad in close combat so skirmishers dont really work well for warmachine hunting.
You will need Terradons to go warmachine hunting becasue they are empires greatest weapons.
If you use Cold ones they work best if you use them to flank when your infantry gets into the action. They are slow even with the standard and die easy when warmachines shoot at them. I would skip them.
For your rare, use Salamandrar as much as you can. March and fire is a great weapon and if you take a wound on the unit then its a panic test and empire can not take to many panic tests. If he does not have his general close then its easy to get them to panic and he will have a hard time making his army work. Skip the stegadon since one or two cannonballs will kill it easy and he wins 275 points without breaking a sweat.
You will run out of points but you just got to find the balance in the list
These are suggestions to build a an army that is made to defeat empire. But as I said before, Its all about what kind of game you are playing. He will have a hard time with this kind of list and his warmachines will be pretty uneffective. And in close combat you will just tear through him. Good luck and keep us posted on your decisions and how it went. May the Old ones be with you.
