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He has an ability as follows:

Clutching Pseudopods: At the start of each combat phase, Gutrot Spume can attempt to ensnare an enemy model within 1". If he does so, pick a weapon carried by that model. You and your opponent then both roll a dice. If your opponent rolled higher, his model breaks free of the clutching pseudopods and suffers no adverse effects; otherwise, his model’s weapon is ensnared and it cannot make any attacks with it until the end of the phase.

Does this mean that the ability prevents the enemy from attacking with that weapon entirely in the phase, or makes it so that the enemy can only use that weapon at the very end? What does "until the end of the phase" mean in this?

It effectively means that you can't use that weapon for the duration of that combat phase. In other words, unless that model has another weapon to use, he won't be making any attacks during that combat phase.

The until end of phase just lets you know that the effect isn't permanent. You'd be able to use your weapon again during the next turn's combat phase.

I actually played against gutrot today, and this ability was nasty. He got close to my vampire, so I had to flee and lost two rounds of combat because of it. Love him!

I've always played this as the ensnared model gets to fight at the end of the phase after all other attacks have been made.

(Page 235) The Hints and Tips section of the 1st AoS book describes end of phase and abilities:

"By the same token,abilities used at the end of the phase are carried out after all normal activities for the phase are complete."

I'm, with disco king on that. It says nothing about not being able to attack at all this phase, or until next combat phase, just that he can't attack until the end of the combat phase.

The ability fires at the start of the combat phase, before Gutrot even activates, and effectively allows him to stop a model attacking early in the combat round. The ability is nasty in that it forces you to wait until all other attacks have been made by which point you may be dead. Or it allows Gutrot to activate last knowing he can't be attacked earlier etc, so you can focus on activating other units first.

But if you're attacking, you haven't reached the END of the phase yet, have you?

Interesting perspectives. I think I lean to attacking at the end of the phase, basically being the ability delays the opponent using one of its weapons during the normal combat rotation. Disco, your quote seems to point to that.

Manfred, I might compare it to being told to shut off the lights at the end of the work day, or what have you. It's at the very end, technically it hasn't "ended," but the action that signifies the end and the end itself are joined. Not sure that's the clearest comparison but you probably get what I mean.

Personally I think it means "until the end of the phase" as opposed to the more common "until the start of your next hero phase" meaning they lose that weapon's attacks for that turn. Otherwise you would have a multi-weapon model attacking with some of its weapons at one point then the ensnared weapon later on - which doesn't make as much sense (and could also be an advantage, even, since you get to see how much wounds your other attacks deal). No attacks at all also fits in with the broader design philosophy of abilities tending to be very powerful when they do occur.

But there is a lot of ambiguity in the wording. Unfortunate that we will, in all likelihood, never get an official answer.