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Hey guys.

I'm on the verge of calling it a day with the Empire army I have. Granted, it's not a large force, but I'm very unsure on if I should divulge anymore time into painting and building an army.

I own the book, but without me playing that many games yet, I'm struggling to put an army together. My problem is that I get so very tempted by nice new shiny books! and I loose track of how cool my army actually is. And unfortunately that's empire at the moment. So I just have a couple of questions.

At the moment, how do empire fair in 8th edition? My problem is, I look at the book, and I see units in other armies which are so much better. Chaos, better lords and heros? Check. High elves, and lizardmen, better magic. Brets, better cav. Dwarves, better artillery. I know empire is a jack of all trades and master non, but I struggle to see the synergy until in action.

Any help would be greatly appreciated... I'm torn between TK lizardmen and empire!

Take 40 halberdiers, on paper, not terribly impressive, stat-wise. But cheap, so thats good. And in a horde, they throw out 31attacks.
Then add a warrior priest, suddenly that horde has hatred, and possibly re-rolls to wound/5+ward/flaming attacks.
Suddenly, they look a lot better.
Then add in a captain, so if they lose a combat, they take the break test on 3d6 (and lose highest)
Even better...
More you say? Add in the heavens popewagon, and they get+1 to hit in CC, which usually means on 3s...
This (still rather cheap) unit now has a bunch of bonuses, not even including proper magical support (Im a fan of Light magic).

No other 8th ed book relies so much on unit synergy. No one unit will win the game for you, but working together, the sum is greater than its parts...

The simple answer is do all three

My first fantasy army was Lizardmen, and I enjoy them a lot. What I found after playing them was that there wasn't as much "tactical finesse", so to speak, as the units are much more straight forward. Combat blocks? S4, T4. Skirmishers? Skinks to go around and do their thing.

With Empire, it's T3 all over the place. Stat-wise, all the units are essentially the same. S3 T3, and it's only the armament that takes them into their roles. I find them to be the most rewarding army I've played from a tactical standpoint, as often you go up against units that look much nastier on paper compared to a lowly halberdier, and yet those halberdiers being led by a Warrior Priest (praise Sigmar) go and fight anyway. I enjoy it thoroughly.

Japehlio's suggestion about 40 halberdiers with a warrior priest is spot on. If you're having some trepidation about playing Empire, play that one unit and you might have your mind changed.

Yeah, other armies can do each individual phase better, but Empire can do everything. There's a lot of fun there. To take a look at your examples, Chaos has better lords/heroes, but no shooting. High Elves have great magic and some cool units, but can't horde up. Lizardmen have the awesome Slann, but they lack cheap cavalry and long range shooting. Brets have better cav, but worse infantry. Dwarves have better artillery, but Empire has enough to give them pause AND can move a whole lot better to boot. The best part is, you can have all of those elements in the same list! Figure a couple blocks of state troops, a level 4 wizard, a pair of cannons, and a unit of Knights and you have everything at your disposal, at really any playable point level. If you find you like one part more after playing for a bit, you can always just focus on that. If what you focused on ends up being boring, go the other direction. Endless fun!

I say get some new stuff, play with it, and don't give up on Empire just yet!

To answer your other question, 8th has been good to Empire. 7th was brutal, but in 8th I've had a lot of success against the whole slew of armies that are out there. I haven't played/bought the new shiny units yet (wizard mobiles/demigryphs) and I still do well with the army book.