After my stinging defeat against
@Zakhodit, I had quite a wait for my next match. Even when my opponent was finally determined, it took several days to find a time we were both available, due to being 8 hours off of each others' schedules. Comstar then refused to let us play in the narrow window of available time on the day we chose, so we had to wait a few more days for the next time we'd both be available.
At last, I faced
@Tegatana. Right away my opponent had an initiative advantage, forcing me to move first each round, which gave
@Tegatana a lot of extra damage early on. I made matters worse with a foolish move on a Firestarter that put them in range of most of the enemy lance and no Guard, costing them an arm and a lot of other spread-out damage, on just the second or third round of engagement! As I spent multiple rounds having that Firestarter retreat with jump + Guard movement, things looked quite bleak for me at this point.
Next, I tried to outmaneuver my opponent to force them to divide their damage, while otherwise just watching for a weakness to turn around what looked like a losing match for me. Finally, I saw my window of opportunity:
@Tegatana had moved a Hunchback 4G into a spot where my whole lance could shoot it (similar to the mistake I made previously on my Firestarter), leaving it with only a few pips of evasion for defense. The timing of this move couldn't have been worse for the poor Hunchback, as that was the very round I reached maximum fury. I unloaded on the Hunchback with a fury called-shot, and subsequently took it from practically full armor to destroying the ammo for its main weapon before it could move again to defend itself. I now felt I was back in contention!
My opponent then tried to focus fire on my own Hunchback to even the score (including the use of their own fury called shot), but this effort exposed
@Tegatana's Firestarter and allowed me first a back-stab DFA with my own crippled Firestarter, followed by a second backstab Firestarter punch, and finally a killing blow dealt by a heavier 'Mech, while about that same time I finished off his Hunchback as well. At this point all four of my 'Mechs had sustained moderate damage due to my successful effort to divide incoming damage. I say successful, but that "moderate damage" done to me included taking both arms off a Firestarter, and largely disarming a Hunchback. Meanwhile, I had focused down two of my opponent's 'Mechs, leaving the remaining two in near-pristine condition. From this point,
@Tegatana began swinging to the opposite flank, getting as much distance from my disarmed Hunchback and reduced-Jump-Jet Firestarter as possible, since they were no longer able to keep up. I made a concerted effort to keep all my 'Mechs at either maximum evasion or guarded status in hopes of maintaining my numbers advantage, as we proceeded to the endgame...
@Tegatana managed for a few rounds to stay out of range of half of my lance, then killed my crippled Firestarter when it caught up. My Hunchback caught up with a series of sprints, and its punching + small laser continued to have a substantial impact, as
@Tegatana's 'Mechs were too hot to jump out of its range, so the crippled Hunchback was able to walk up and punch from its choice of flanks. I systematically targeted the sides of the enemy 'Mechs with the most energy weapons, reducing how much my opponent could bring to bear as they were quickly running out of ammo. For a while we battled with ever-fewer weapons in a small forest near the edge of the map, then the grand finale took place with virtually all of the 'Mechs crippled to the point that punching was their best option for dealing damage, so we took turns exchanging mostly melee attacks using a patch of rough terrain for melee defense. I ultimately triumphed, finishing the match with a glorious decapitating head punch!
