I think I've seen the odd behavior ganjatron described as well, so maybe there's a very occasional bug in the combat engine.
Normally the E. Beholder's special ability works exactly as described by Shd, but on one rare instance I've seen them do a full charm effect, and the game engine has given me full control of the enemy unit, with access to ranged attacks and abilities.
If you actually check the status of the unit after the E. Beholder's special effect has done, I think it shows up as "charmed", but of course its turn is over so you don't actually get control.
My guess is that the E. Beholder's effect is implemented by
- putting the unit in charmed status, so that it doesn't get a normal turn
- making the unit's turn come round immediately
- forcing the unit to take a move/attack action as directed by the player when the Beholder's ability was cast, rather than getting a normal turn
- setting the unit's AP to zero
So I figure that there's a possible bug in whatever code implements the replacment turn for the unit, and the game can leave the unit with AP but in charmed state, so that the player has full control when the unit's turn comes round.
I'm still on my first play through the game as a lvl 17 Warrior on norm difficulty, and the E. Beholders have been a staple of my army since around lvl 8. A rough estimate would probably say I've used the ability around 50-60 times, and seen this effect occur once.
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