Alrighty then, here's a rundown of what happened last game.
Draconis Combine
Thunder Hawk 7x
King Crab 000b
Battlemaster 1G-DC
Hatamoto-Chi 27T
Marauder 2R
Shootist 8A
Crab 27
Mongoose 67
Scorpion 1N
Guillotine 3N
Stalker 3H
Awesome 8Q
FedCom
Nightstar 9J
Devastator 2
Longbow 7Q
Catapult C1
Hunchback 4G
Victor 9B
Shadow Hawk 2Hb
Raven 2X
Hussar 350D
Flashman 7K
Striker 2S
Vulcan 5T
The Combine had roughly a 3k BV advantage, but I was wanting to make this a challenge for the FedCom.
It started off with the Combine putting all but the Mongoose, Scorpion and Crab on their left flank. The FedCom responded by moving their Nightstar, Devastator and Longbow to a central hill with excellent view of the battlefield. All the FedCom light and medium mechs moved to counter the Combine's lights and mediums. the rest of the FedCom mechs positioned themselves behind a hill. The Devastator, Nightstar and Longbow were laying down long range fire as the Combine were closing the distance.
But instead of waiting for the Combine the Hunchback, Striker, Victor and Flashman were committed. This resulted in a bloody exchange of short range firepower. The Hunchback was nearly cored in one turn of shooting. Its AC20 was put out of commission and it lost one of its medium lasers. The Stalker took a head hit and suffered an ammo explosion that caused the pilot to pass out from injuries. Both the Hunchback and Stalker fell over.
The next turn, the Combine shifted its focus to the Victor who had positioned himself to attempt to kick the head off of the Shootist. The Hunchback stood back up and decided to try and finish off the Stalker. The FedCom decided to focus on the Battlemaster who had started to close the distance to the Longbow. The Victor took a withering amount of firepower, but managed to soak up all the damage including a PPC to the head. However, the Victor missed its shot with the AC20, missed the kick on the Shootist. It then fell over and landed on its head killing the pilot.
Meanwhile on the other end of the battlefield, the lights and mediums were content shooting at each other from medium and long ranges. The Vulcan got unlucky and had its head shot off (there was a misunderstanding of how partial cover worked; by the time I found out what had happened it was too late to undo it all). The Shadowhawk was doing a good job of keeping the rest of the Combine's mechs at bay however and was inflicting damage to the Scorpion which was starting to go internal in the legs.
After the Victor's unlucky fall, the Combine then focused on the Striker. The FedCom had an extreme change of luck. When it seemed the Striker was going to get off relatively unscathed (the Shootist missing with the AC20 along with some a lot of other weapons missing), the 2 medium pulse lasers managed to both hit the Striker's head cleaving it. While all this is going on, the Hunchback was ignored while still picking on the Stalker; it had suffered 2 engine hits and lost a heat sink so it couldn't stand still and shoot its single remaining medium laser without building up heat. The Guillotine decided to chase down the Flashman and engage it on its own. The Marauder had one of its arms shot off from the Nightstar, Devastator, Longbow and Catapult ganging up on it.
The Combine decided to blow past the Flashman and have the Guillotine deal with it and concentrated on the Longbow. They managed to knock it over, but no loss of any weapons or limbs. The Fedcom then decided to focus on the King Crab who was getting dangerously close. In one turn of shooting, the KC was hit by 4 gauss rifles, 3 PPCs, 2 LRM20s, 2 LRM5s and at least 6 medium lasers and nothing went internal; the dice gods decided to punish the FedCom yet again. The Longbow then had its leg and one arm blown off and was essentially combat ineffective the rest of the battle. The Combine decided to rush with its lights and mediums to try and cut off the FedCom's line of retreat. The Thunderhawk destroyed a leg belonging to the Hunchback who was still trying to core the Stalker. The Catapult had an opportunity the following turn after that to kick off the Thunder Hawk's head, but missed the kick and fell over.
The next turn, the Nightstar became the focus of the Combine with the King Crab still being targeted by the FedCom. The King Crab almost lost its leg and took actuator damage knocking it over. The Nightstar, however, had one of its legs completely blown off with little to no damage anywhere else (again, the RNG taking one side). The Guillotine blew off one of the Flashman's legs that sealed its fate. It was at this point we called the game. We decided to see if the Stalker pilot could wake back up to get away from the Flashman and Hunchback who were so intent on completely coring it. And wouldn't you know it...despite having 4 pilot hits, the pilot regained consciousness and saved his mech from total destruction.
In summary the FedCom would have only managed to escape with the Shadow Hawk, Hussar and Raven; all other forces would have been captured or destroyed. The Kuritans lost the King Crab with the Battlemaster, Scorpion, Stalker and Marauder suffering heavy damage. I have seen very few fights were luck was so one sided. The FedCom was putting out a lot of damage, but it was spread out too much on the mechs they shot at. The Combine on the other hand seemed to get much better damage groupings which was why they managed to shoot off so many legs.
The only thing I could think of that the FedCom could have done better was instead of committing the lance of the Striker, Victor, Hunchback and Flashman when they did, they probably should have waited for the Combine to close allowing more time for the long range fire support to soften up the Kuritans a little more. That may have let the FedCom to bag another mech or two, but the dice were so lob-sided.