Ken Kennedy: As if the raw strength, speed, and ferocity of Ogres Kingdoms armies weren't bad enough, their shamanistic Butchers give them access to some very nasty magic. By channelling the raw power of the Great Maw, the spiritual leaders of the tribes can augment their fellow Ogres or can call down the wrath of their savage god on their pitiful enemies. Ogre Butchers and/or Slaughtermasters using Gut Magic, as it is known, can be very powerful additions to an Ogre Kingdoms army. However, it is very important to understand all the advantages and disadvantages that Butchers have when compared to wizards of other armies.
THE BAD NEWS
Ogre Kingdoms armies wishing to employ magic must be aware of a few disadvantages that Butchers have over wizards of other armies. Once the implications of these differences are understood, Gut Magic will go down a lot smoother.
ONLY TWO CHOICES
Butchers are a Hero choice and are considered level 2 wizards, while Slaughtermasters are a Lord choice and count as a level 4 wizard for purposes of generating Dispel and Power dice. Thus a Butcher generates 2 Power and 1 Dispel dice and a Slaughtermaster provides an army with 4 additional Power and 2 Dispel dice. The only problem with this hierarchy is that there is no option to have a level 1 or level 3 wizard in an Ogre Kingdoms army. This is not a huge disadvantage, especially if you are a general who always upgrades your wizards. This bit of inflexibility is a problem for those who like lots of options and want as much control as possible. If you just want to add a level 1 wizard with a weak but valuable arcane item, you are out of luck.
LESS BANG FOR THE BUCK
While Butchers and Slaughtermasters get just as many Power dice as wizards in other armies, they are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to how many dice they are allowed to use to cast spells. A Butcher is only allowed to roll a maximum of 2 dice to cast a Gut Magic spell and a Slaughtermaster may not allocate more than 3 dice to cast a spell. This is in contrast to other level 2 and level 4 wizards who can use up to 3 and 5 Power dice, respectively. Again, this can be more or less of a disadvantage based upon a general's style of play. If you are a player who is cautious or likes to cast many low power spells, then this will not be a problem for you. However, this could be a problem when it comes down to crunch time and you have a spell that MUST go off, and you can't afford your enemy dispelling it. Occasionally a game will come down to this, and you will need to pray to the Great Maw for lots of 6s.
EXCLUSIVITY
Fully half of the Gut Magic spells that Butchers have access to can be used to augment friendly units (see below). Not so fast! The Gut Magic spells Bullgorger, Toothcracker, and Trollguts can only be cast on units listed as Ogre units. These spells can give Ogres some powerful battlefield advantages, but can't be used on Gnoblars, Yhettees, Gorgers, Giants, or anything else that is not listed as an Ogre unit. This disadvantage will have major implications on how you construct your army, and what strategy you might use.
NO PAIN NO GAIN
A quick perusal of the Gut Magic spell list will show a significant difference between Gastromancy and spells that employ the winds of magic. Almost all of the Gut magic spells have the potential to cause damage to the Butcher! In fact, the Trollguts spell automatically causes the Butcher a wound with no save or chance of Regeneration. Casting spells has never been so dangerous. Having said this, Butchers start with 4 Wounds and Slaughtermasters start with 5 and the first spell on the Gut Magic list, Bloodgruel, can heal one of the Butcher's wounds... but it could also finish him off. One the plus side, causing wounds to your Butcher could inspire your opponent to let a spell go by that they would normally try to dispel. This is only likely if your Butcher is looking weakly, or if they've got something ready to finish him off. Tricky stuff; be careful out there.
LIMITED NUMBERS
The biggest disadvantages of Butchers are the army list limits that have been placed on them. Firstly, a Butcher cannot be the General of an army. This means that an Ogre Kingdoms player must purchase at least on Bruiser, at 130+ points, before a Butcher, also at 130+ points, can even be considered. When playing games below 1,500 points, an Ogre Kingdoms player is going to have to make a decision about whether they can afford a General, a Butcher, and a Army Standard Bearer. These three characters will easily take up a third of your points at this scale!
Secondly, a Slaughtermaster (which, remember, is a Lord choice) can only be taken in armies that include a Tyrant. Since a Tyrant is also a Lord choice, a Slaughtermaster will never see play in a game of less than 3,000 points. Even then, a Tyrant (at 200+ points) and a Slaughtermaster (also 200+ points) will easily set you back 500-600 points once outfitted to do battle. That's a lot of points on just two characters!The end result of these limits and the high cost of Ogre characters is that it is very difficult to field as many wizards as other armies. Just like the rest of your army, expect your Butchers to be outnumbered on the magic front. Since other armies can have wizards as Generals, and are not limited in the same way as Ogres, the threat of being totally outgunned is a very real possibility. If facing a magic-heavy army, your Butchers may become totally ineffectual.
...AND NOW THE GOOD NEWS!
You wouldn't expect it from lunk-heads like the Ogres, but Butchers and Slaughtermasters automatically know all six spells on the Gut Magic list. This is a major advantage! No longer will your wizard be stuck with that spell that only works in a certain situation; you've got all the spells for all the situations! Don't wait, start casting on Turn 1 and don't stop until all your enemies are dead! Not only does knowing all the spells mean you have choices, but it also means that you can attempt to cast more spells every turn. A solitary Butcher with a total of 4 Power dice (2 for army, 2 for level 2 wizard) can attempt to cast 4 Gut Magic spells with a pretty good chance of them working. Sound crazy, but it's not because...
YOU ONLY NEED 3!
A Butcher only needs to roll a 3+ for any of the Gut Magic spells to work. Yes, that's not a mistake. This means that a Butcher has a 66% chance of successfully casting a Gut magic spell with a single Power dice. Your opponent only has so many Dispel dice; eventually they will have to choose to let something by or will run out. Consider the situation when your single Power dice comes up a 5 or a 6. If it's a critical encounter, your enemy is going to be forced to roll 2 Dispel dice to make sure they dispel the spell (and even then there is no guarantee as we all know). Two Dispel dice down, not many to go. Now you can bring out the big guns, sacrifice a few Tooth-Gnoblars (add +1 to casting value), and successfully cast your ace-in-the-hole spell with little chance of it being dispelled. Remember, a 1 or a 2 on the total of the casting dice is always a failure even with modifiers, so sacrificing a Tooth-Gnoblar won't help if you roll poorly on the single dice. Check out Grut's Sickle if you want help with this problem, and a little more power for your Gut Magic.
Thinking of stacking up on Butchers because of this? You might want to consider this important limitation. If a spell has been successfully cast that phase, a second Butcher needs a 6+ to cast the same spell, and so on. Without this power check, those that commune with the Great Maw would be a bit too powerful.
SPELLS THAT LAST
Another incredible advantage of Gut Magic spells is that some of them have "Lasting Effects". This is different from "Remains in Play" spells in that the Butcher can continue to cast spells after successfully casting a "Lasting Effects" spell. In fact, they can have multiple Gut Magic spells in play at the same time, the only limit being that a unit can only ever have one Gut Magic spell on it at one time. No longer do you have to make the hard choices between keeping a spell going or casting something new in an area of the battlefield that needs support. Even though they only need a 3+ (the first one anyway) to cast, Gut Magic spells are dispelled as though they were Remains in Play spells cast at Power Level 7. Easy to cast but hard to get rid of once they are in play... that's good mojo.
PRAISE THE GREAT MAW
The Gut Magic spell list (see p61 of Warhammer Armies: Ogre Kingdoms for all the details) is a really good spell list for an offensive army like the Ogre Kingdoms. Some spell lists have at least a few spells that are either terrible, too situational, or are just plain difficult to cast. This is not the case with the Gut Magic spells. Every single spell in the list is as useful and valuable on the first turn as it is at any other point in the game. It has a magic missile (Bonecrusher), a spell that causes Panic (Braingobbler) and three spells that augment units of Ogres. The Bullgorger spell can give extra Strength (as if they need it), the Toothcracker spell makes a unit Stubborn and adds Toughness, and Trollguts gives a unit Magic Resistance (2) and Regeneration. Finally, the much needed Bloodgruel can heal the Butcher's wounds after casting death across the battlefield. Oh yeah, did I mention that you only need 3+ to cast these spells?
NO WIMPY WIZARDS
Prophets of the Great Maw may have a few disadvantages when it comes to magic, but on the physical level, Ogre shamans are heads and shoulders above their magical peers. Let's compare an Ogre Butcher (level 2) with a base cost of 130 points to a level 2 Dark Elf Sorceress whose base cost is also 130 points. Who's going to win a fist fight? The Butcher is faster, stronger, almost twice as tough, has twice as many Wounds, and has triple the Attacks! The Sorceress is going to need the higher Weapon Skill and Leadership just to survive the first round with the Butcher. Butchers are almost as good as Ogre Bruisers for the same 130-point cost. They have one less Strength, Attack, and Leadership and don't have a great Weapon Skill, but the trade-off is the ability to cast game-altering spells. Not too shabby.
Ogre Butchers are survivors. They have tons of Wounds and the ability to heal them. They start with an incredible Toughness of 5 and can increase that to a 6 with the Toothcracker spell. They are immune to Poison, and Cause Fear. Your enemy's all-wizard army has you over a magical barrel? Throw the Butcher into the fray and when all the wizards are dead, he can use their flesh to cast his spells.
FEAST ON YOUR FOES
As you can see, an Ogre Kingdoms general has a lot to consider before bringing his Butcher(s) into battle. There are many significant problems with using Butchers, but at the same time, there are huge advantages to be gained if deployed and used properly. At the end of the day, the decision to use your Butchers will depend upon your style of play and the troops you have available to you as much as it will the things that a Butcher brings to your force. Remember that a Butcher isn't just a pale weakling that has to hide inside or behind your units. An Ogre Butcher is a terrifying killing machine that is a physical match for many characters in the Warhammer world. The ability to cast Gut Magic could be all your army needs to bring the Old World to its knees.
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