"Should I use Butchers and Slaughtermasters ?" i hear you ask...
in short, the answer is "yes !" Use Gut Magic in your army
Ogre magic is very limited in both spell options and power but it is actually quite useful.
Also, don't forget that Ogre spell casters are somewhat unique in the Warhammer Fantasy World. Butchers and Slaughtermasters are useful fighters in their own right and you can afford to place them in 'full on' combat units because they are capable of looking after themselves. This is quite an exception to the norm where magic users need a lot more protection or have to be kept out of combat altogether.
Ogre magic is quite bruttish, no subtlety or elegance from these beer belly swaggering behemoths. Gut Magic, as it's known, is cheap to cast (all spells are cast on 3+ the first time they are used in a magice round). Gut magic can be fairly dangerous to cast. There are only 6 spells, below is what you can expect from an Ogre Gut magic user.
In brief:-
There is a weak ranged spell called Bonecruncher, 4 spells to enhance str, tough, wounds, magic resistance and/or regeneration. There is 1 spell for inducing panic in the enemy.
Gut Magic...
is especially worth having because:-1) all the spells are useful and you can see situations arising in every battle when you would benefit from gut magic
2) both Butchers and Slaughtermasters know all 6 spells so no need to randomly select them.
The downside...
The biggest drawback is that Gut Magic is slightly easie to dispel for the enemy. This is because there is a limit to the number of power dice that can be used when casting (2 dice for a Butcher and 3 for a Slaughtermaster).
You benefit less than normal from having multiple spellcasters because if the same spell is cast by another Ogre, in a turn when that spell has already been used, it costs double, triple etc to cast (depending on how many times it has already been used that turn)
In summary
Gut Magic is worth investing some points in.
One spell combination of particular note is...
Trollguts and Bloodgruel.
You can use Trollguts to give a unit within 6" (butcher) or 12" (slaughtermaster) regeneration (in effect a ward save of 4+) and magic resistance (2) !!!! The cost is an automatic unsaveable wound to your spellcaster.
You can them use Bloodgruel to restore the wound suffered ! Cool heh ?! The rulebook says the wound cannot be regenerated but I believe this relates to the regeneration ability. Bloodgruel does not use the regeneratio ability is simply restores a wound after the event.
