This one was a Skirmish match in Terra Therma. I dropped in my new AWS 9M with a Standard engine, an ERPPC, 2 LL, 3 ML and 1 SRM2. <--- Lol I know.
The round starts with the usual team grouping up, but instead of charging into the center volcano to die, we waited for the enemy to come to us at the base of the hill going up to one of the bridges. The enemy's Assaults and Heavies come first, fire a few volleys, and retreat. Apparently the enemy team had great coordination like us, because their Mediums and Lights went out the sides of the volcano and flanked us on both sides.
Before the flankers surround us my team splits in half, with half going left and half going right, leaving me, a Jagermech, and a Highlander to guard the bridge. The few enemies that remain start to charge and we gun them down pretty quickly. The three of us then split up to join our teammmates who had gone to intercept the flankers, with me and the Jagermech going right. At this point the score is 6 to 6. We join up with an Atlas and a Thunderbolt fighting off a Wolverine, a Blackjack, and a crippled Stalker. I sneak into a lava river as my teammates finish off the Stalker, go under the bridge the enemy mechs are fighting from as they retreat and full speed, and open fire on them from behind at about 600m. The two damaged mechs turn around to fire a few potshots at me but a few well-placed PPC and Laser blasts send them running. I give chase, my buddies catch up, and we finish off the two damaged Mediums and split up again.
My radar shows two allied Shadow Hawks fighting 3-4 enemy mechs on the other side of the volcano, so I take a shortcut through. By the time I get to the other side the score is 8 to 8, the only members left on my team are the two badly damaged Shadow Hawks and me. My allies are trying to fight off three Mediums - a Cicada, a Blackjack, and a Griffin. Since I had little damage to my mech I charged in guns blazing and forced the enemy to run for a few seconds (which felt great, by the way. We Awesome pilots don't get to do that very often). The enemy quickly reacted and cored out the two remaining Shadow Hawks on my team, leaving my mostly-undamaged Awesome against three badly wounded - but still fully armed and extremely dangerous - Mediums mechs.
At this point, four words go through my head: "Allright, ****ers. It's on."
I begin twisting and turning my Awesome through the enemies as they surrounded and tried to take out my rear armor. The first to die was the Blackjack, who melted a good chunk of my front torso armor off but went down when my lasers took out his side torso (thank God for XL engines). I whirled around and with a quick glance at the damage readout saw the Griffin had an exposed right torso, and I send an SRM-2 volley into his missile rack, blowing out his right torso and dropping him as well (again, thank God for XLs). However my front torso armor was completely gone, and my left, right, and center CT internals were red; I could die in one shot and it was down to me and a Medium laser boating Cicada.
I open fire with my PPC and manage to nick him before I notice his CT is red too. As he runs to cover by a hill I fire my Large and Medium Lasers at him, overheating my Awesome. At this point I thought it'd be the humiliating end but he doesn't come around the corner again to shoot me, at least not before I was able to power back up. I charge straight for him, lasers ready, and he comes around the corner. We charge straight at one another and fire our lasers at the same time --- and my Awesome drops to the ground like a rock, the Cicada standing over me. Everybody says good game, and I leave the match.
I gotta say I have a lot of admiration for everyone in that match. Everybody did a great job with coordination and teamwork and I especially admire that Cicada pilot for finishing me off - I believe his user was "Animaliztic" or something similar. I really hope I'll get to play with those guys (and gals?) again sometime.