Skink skirmishers or charmeleon skinks, don't buy the metal models though, convert from the plastics to save money.
Seeming as you cant buy terradons Ill suggest Chameleon Skinks. Basically get 6-8 Chamo Skinks and then place them in a forest or out of LOS of any units (bing scouts an all) then either you pop out and charge them (8 S3 attacks should be enough to see off 3 warmachine crew) or shoot your blowpipes at them (though you risk hitting the war machine and not doing any damage). Personally I would charge with them as you should kill them all off, if not you should still win combat and they will run away.
maximum 5x S3 hit to 3 men crews and 4x S3 hit to 2 men crews... so generally you tie them and prevent their shooting, if you are lucky may be destroy them... But if you put your skinks 1" before bolt thrower, cannon or stone thrower they cant attack other than skink units because of LOS... and you can shoot them or other aviable targets...
lone salamanders/Razordons or even better 2 units of 1 if you are playing 2k or more. once i combat as long as you can kill 1 crew you outnumber with a fear causer and they auto break. Has worked like a charm for me Vs empire, plus you can move and shoot the turn you come back on the board. I prefer my terradons to force my opponent to take charges from my units or run into them and be destroyed
But if you stand in front of them, they can still see large targets can't they? I would think stegs would be the primary target of most warmachines anyway... Would have to see if the stegs were in LoS when deciding what to do with charmeleons.
You are right Strewart. If you have steg in your list, using skinks as a close screen not a good tactic ... but generaly I don't use stegadons in my lists... I prefer core saurus power
Small fast characters are good for hunting Warmachines. The new JSoD (with a 28" first turn charge ) is a good choice, combining him with a Slann with Lore of Shadows pretty much garentees you get his flight move off.
Its good idea but, skink hero with sword of might may be better choice. first of all it cant be dispelled. and generally it can win combat with small resulation... it's important, because if you break the enemy first turn and if your pursue move ends in open, all warmachines and wizard turn towards your character... In my gaming club I have a friend who plays The Empire... He generaly dont miss any chracter stay open (he use the great Cannons for sniping... ) Its like play with Tyranids in 40K... If you breake your enemy in your first assault, other enemy units can shoot your unit... because of that its better to win combat with small diffrance (or some times lose combat) is better than destroy enemy unit...