A Gaze Attack is one of the many Special Attack Types featured in Master of Magic. A Gaze Attack is only executed as an integral part of a unit's Melee Attack.
Gaze Attacks are only available to units possessing one of the three Unit Abilities that bestow such an attack, including Death Gaze, Doom Gaze, and Stoning Gaze. Each of these abilities provides the unit with a Gaze Attack that delivers one specific kind of Special Damage. The type of damage delivered by the attack determines its effect, and it can be quite different from one Gaze Attack to the next. Units that do not possess one of the Gaze Attack abilities by default will never be able to use a Gaze Attack.
Gaze Attacks are executed nearly halfway through the Melee Attack sequence, before any Melee Damage is delivered. Thus, the more enemy 
Figures a Gaze Attack can kill, the less danger there will be to the Gaze Attacker once the target gets the chance to retaliate. Note that Breath Attacks and/or Thrown Attacks will be executed before any Gaze Attacks take place.
Gaze Attacks may be executed by either or both of the participants in a Melee Attack. However, if both units are capable of a Gaze Attack, the initiator of the Melee Attack gets to go first, followed by the target of the Melee Attack (if it is still alive by that point).
Two of the three different kinds of Gaze Attacks, namely Death Gaze and Stoning Gaze, will always trigger a target's Magic Immunity (if present). If this occurs, the target will feel no harm from the Gaze Attack whatsoever. A Doom Gaze attack, however, does not trigger Magic Immunity.
The strength of a Gaze Attack is indicated in a unit's details panel as the value of its relevant gaze ability. For example, a unit's details panel may list "Stoning Gaze -4", "Doom Gaze 10", and so forth. This value can have different meanings depending on the type of damage delivered by the attack. For example, "Stoning Gaze -4" inflicts a 
-4 Resistance penalty on the target. To understand how these values work, it is best to read the article explaining the relevant ability.
The strength of a unit's Gaze Attack will likely stay the same throughout the unit's existence, and normally cannot be modified by any spells or effects. Again, specific types of gaze-related abilities may behave differently from others, so please read the relevant ability articles for more information.
Possession of a Gaze Attack allows a 
Walking or 
Swimming unit to attack any enemy 
Flying unit.
Concept[]
Ancient mythology, and particularly Greek mythology, contains various creatures who can cause harm to anyone making eye-contact with them. Most famous of these were the Gorgons, and primarily the Medusa, whose stare could turn any creature into a solid stone statue. In the ancient tale, the only way to avoid this effect was to approach and attack the creature while observing it only through a mirror (specifically, a reflective shield).
In the world of Master of Magic, various creatures possess a similarly-deadly ability of killing purely by looking at the target. In the game, sneaky tactics involving polished shields may not be used, so any unit attacking a gazer opponent is grievously risking itself. Because only eye-contact is required, the Gaze Attacker can harm its opponent from a relatively safe (though not overly long) distance, well before physical combat ensues between the two units. Therefore, the more enemies are killed or harmed by this gaze attack, the fewer remain to harm the Gaze Attacker when physical contact finally occurs.
Effect[]
The effect of a Gaze Attack depends entirely on the type of Special Damage that it delivers. All Gaze Attacks deliver one damage type, and the exact type is determined by the Unit Ability that gave the unit this kind of attack.
The following table shows the three available gaze-related Unit Abilities, and the type of damage delivered by their respective Gaze Attacks:
| Icon | Name | Gaze Attack Damage Type |
|---|---|---|
|
Death Gaze | Death Damage |
|
Doom Gaze | Doom Damage |
|
Stoning Gaze | Stoning Damage |
Death Damage and Stoning Damage are very similar, forcing each Figure in the target unit to Resist or die instantly. The "strength" of a Death Gaze or Stoning Gaze ability indicates a temporary Resistance penalty inflicted on the target to make it harder for those figures to survive the attack. The real difference between these two damage types is that each will trigger a different immunity, if present.
Doom Damage operates very differently - causing a precise number of 
Damage Points to the target. Unlike Physical Damage or Area Damage, it does not involve any 
To Hit rolls by the attacker, nor any 
Defense rolls by the target. Thus the amount of Damage inflicted will always be the same. That amount is indicated by the strength of the Doom Gaze ability.
Gaze Attacks and Multi-Figure Units[]
Death Gaze and Stoning Gaze affects all Figures when targeted at a 
Multi-Figure unit. That is, each Figure in the target unit has to resist the effect individually, with the same penalty (if applicable), regardless of the amount of remaining Figures in either the attacking or defending unit.
In contrast, Doom Gaze is more of a direct damage ability, and will only resolve its effect once, against the lead Figure of the target unit.
What little research has been carried out on this subject indicates that Multi-Figure units execute only one Gaze Attack upon their target, regardless of how many Figures they has left. Thus, as long as the unit has at least 1 Figure remaining, its Gaze Attack is as deadly as it was when the unit was still fully healthy.
This also means that confronting an enemy Multi-Figure Gaze Attack unit is very deadly even if that unit has lost most of its Figures. Try to finish it off from a distance (with Ranged Attacks or spells) if possible, instead of risking a unit in Melee combat.
Immunities[]
Any Death Gaze or Stoning Gaze attack performed against a target possessing Magic Immunity is completely ineffective. These Gaze Attacks will trigger that Magic Immunity, causing all damage from the attack to be completely ignored.
Doom Gaze is an exception: it will not trigger a target's Magic Immunity at all, and thus will hurt a Magic-Immune target just as easily as it harms any other target.
Execution and Sequence[]
The Gaze Attack is one of the Special Attack types. This means that it cannot be executed on its own, but rather is always a part of a Melee Attack executed by one unit upon the other.
A unit may use its Gaze Attacks regardless of whether it is the initiator of Melee combat or its target. If both attacker and target possess a Gaze Attack, they may both use it during the fight. Therefore, a unit with a Gaze Attack is lethal both when attacking and when attacked.
Gaze Attacks are always executed after Breath Attacks or Thrown Attacks, and always before either combatant gets to deal Melee Damage or Touch Attacks.
| Stage | Attacker | Defender |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thrown Attack / Breath Attack | -- |
| Gaze Attack | -- | |
| 2 | -- | Gaze Attack |
| 3 | Melee Damage, Touch Attack |
Melee Damage, Touch Attack |
As the table above shows, if both attacker and target possess a Gaze Attack, then the initiator of the Melee Attack gets to deliver its own Gaze Attack first. If the target survives, it may unleash its own Gaze Attack in retaliation. In either case, Gaze Attacks occur before either unit may inflict Melee Damage or Touch Attacks upon the other unit.
The position of the Gaze Attack on the above table gives it an important tactical advantage: if a Gaze Attack can successfully kill off one or more enemy Figures, the enemy unit will be weakened by the time stage 3 (the exchange of Melee Damage and Touch Attacks) is reached. This potentially reduces the harm caused to the Gaze Attacker by the enemy at the end of the Melee process. If a Gaze Attack manages to kill off all enemy Figures simultaneously (a not-uncommon event), then the Melee Attack process abruptly ends with victory for the Gaze Attacker!
Ground vs. Air[]
The normal rules of combat prohibit any Walking or Swimming unit from initiating a Melee Attack against any Flying opponent. Such units may only Counter Attack to this opponent, allowing the Flying enemy to maneuver freely around them without fear of being attacked.
However, possession of a Gaze Attack by a Walking or Swimming unit allows that unit to break the rules: it may freely and voluntarily execute Melee Attacks against enemy Flying units.
Therefore, while such a unit is not actually Flying, it can still engage enemy Flying units on relatively even terms during combat.
Hidden Attack Strength[]
Gaze Attacks have 2 damage components whereas this article ignored one component so far (except for Chaos Spawn where it is replaced by Doom Gaze). The one already mentioned component does damage based on the opponent's resistance: each enemy figure has to make a Resistance roll (or two rolls in case of Chaos Spawn); if it fails this roll, the enemy unit loses 
Hit Points worth of a whole figure.
The so-far-unmentioned component behaves like conventional Physical Damage instead: The unit has a certain Attack Strength, each figure with the Gaze ability makes an Attack Roll (rolls as many dies as the attack strength indicates), and the enemy unit will make Defense Rolls to avoid some of the incoming damage. All in all, this component works like 
Thrown and 
Breath Attacks, whereas it is also applied in Counter Attacks (but a little later than Thrown and Breath).
The Attack Strength of this component is usually hidden though. In case of a Chaos Spawn, it corresponds to the strength of its Doom Gaze. All other units have a default Attack Strength of 1.
| Icon | Unit Name | Strength | Figures | To Hit | Additional Information |
|
Night Stalker | 1 |  1
|
+10% | Bless increases Defense by +3, Righteousness sets it to 50
|
|
Basilisk | 1 | 1
|
+10% | Resist Elements & Elemental Armor increase Def. by +3 / +10
|
|
Gorgons | 1 | 4
|
+20% | Resist Elements & Elemental Armor increase Def. by +3 / +10
|
|
Chaos Spawn | 4 | 1
|
- | Attack is replaced with Doom Gaze |
The Attack Strength can be modified by certain effects. It's basically the same effects as for 
Ranged Magical Attacks whereas Gaze Attacks are only available to Fantastic Units only (so e.g. things like Experience Level shouldn't matter).
| Icon | Name | Effect | Additional Information |
|
Black Prayer | -1 | affects all enemy units |
|
Mind Storm | -5 | Night Stalker cannot be targeted |
|
Chaos Surge | +2 | Chaos Spawn only |
|
Chaos Node Aura | +2 | Chaos Spawn near Chaos Nodes only |
|
Nature Node Aura | +2 | Basilisk and Gorgons near Nature Nodes only |
|
Black Channels | +1 | unit becomes Undead, doesn't work for Night Stalker |
|
Darkness | +1 | Night Stalker and Undeads only, Cloud of Shadow and Eternal Night have same effect |
|
True Light | -1 | Night Stalker and Undeads only, Heavenly Light has same effect |
As said before, the default Attack Strength is 1 for all units except Chaos Spawns. So any attack bonus will still have only a marginal effect. Usually, stronger enemy units are able to avoid most damage thanks to their Defense, and the resist-or-die component is the one dealing the major damage. However, there's a special case where the hidden Attack Strength can have a tremendous effect. The resist-or-die component only works in tandem with the conventional damage component. If the hidden Attack Strength is reduced to 0, then the other component will also stop working.
This can become the case, if Black Prayer, Mind Storm or True Light are in effect. For example, a single Black Prayer spell will disable the Gaze Attack of all enemy Night Stalkers, Basilisks and Gorgons, provided there's no other effect boosting the hidden Attack Strength. This situation is similar to Touch Attacks only working in tandem with conventional Physical Damage (usually Melee Attacks), e.g. Cockatrices will lose their Stoning Touch, if their Attack Strength is lowered to 
0 (note that Stoning Touch and Stoning Gaze behave differently regarding applicable Melee Phase and number of affected figures).
Examples
- Basilisk vs Wolf Riders without any other effects: Let's examine the
conventional damage component first. The Basilisk's hidden Attack Strength is 1, so it will make a single roll which has a 40 % chance to succeed (+10 % To Hit). Now, the Wolf Riders will use their Shields which will cancel a single damage point in at least half of the times. All in all, there's roughly a 14 % chance that the Wolf Riders will suffer 1 Damage. However the resist-or-die component will have usually a significant effect. Even on Veteran level, each Wolf Riders figure will fail the resistance roll in 50 % of the cases (note that the Basilisk's Gaze lowers Resistance by -1 temporarily). The Wolf Riders unit will suffer 5 Damage for each failed roll. All Wolf Riders figures that died during Gaze Phase will not be able to Counter Attack.
- Gorgons vs Phantom Warriors under Nature Node Aura (combat near Nature Node): Let's examine the conventional damage component first. The Aura boosts the Gorgons' hidden Attack Strength to 3. Each Gorgons figure will thus make 1.5 damage in average (+20% To Hit, 1.5 = 3 * 0.5). The Phantom Warriors have no Defense to reduce the incoming damage, and, when considering overkill damage and assuming 4 Gorgons figures, will suffer 6 points of damage in average. Phantom Warriors have Stoning Immunity, so the resist-or-die component will have no effect. Thanks to the conventional damage component almost no Phantom Warriors figure will survive the Gaze Phase, thus the Gorgons will barely suffer any damage in the subsequent Counter Attack.
- Chaos Spawn under effect of Mind Storm: The Chaos Spawn's hidden Attack Strength is 4 and the conventional damage component is replaced with Doom Gaze dealing a fixed amount of damage (independently of the enemy's defense). Mind Storm lowers the Attack Strength to 0. This not only interrupts the Doom Gaze, the whole Gaze Phase is skipped. This means that there isn't any resist-or-die component either (Stoning Gaze and Death Gaze). The Poison effect is also skipped in Gaze Phase (also true for Melee Phase because Melee strength is 0, too). The Chaos Spawn just became a punchbag - not being able to inflict any damage at all.
The situation is differently, if Chaos Surge is in effect. In this case the Chaos Spawn's hidden Attack Strength is just lowered to 1 (1 = 4 + 2 - 5). While Doom Gaze will just inflict 1 Damage, Stoning Gaze and Death Gaze can still inflict considerable damage (and there's also Poison): Stoning Gaze and Death Gaze will still kill an enemy unit with 9 crosses half of the times thanks to their innate -4 Resistance penalty which is unaffected by Mind Storm. Note that a unit consisting of 8 figures will have to make 8 Stoning rolls and 8 Death rolls (both at -4) and that all damage is summed up before calculating how many figures died (so a whole unit may still die, even if multiple figures manage to resist both rolls at the same time).