Yeah, decapitation attacks are the
preferred means of enforcing an enemy pilot's...compliance.
Been running my own campaign on the side, and used the FM: Mercenaries rules for unit creation. Which allowed me a couple of starting characters with special advantages.
One of my rolled characters was a 3/2 Assault pilot with Melee Master and Melee Expert. I then put him in a bog-standard 3025-era Charger (CGR-1A1).
He proceeded to get into a special mission where two allied pilots turn traitor and he has to fight them off solo. The two traitors were both in a Cyclops (one a -10Z and the other an upgraded -11C). Thankfully the map had a small village in the middle. He proceeded to play hide and seek with the two traitors until he got the iniative advantage, then raced out and kicked one. The two advantages mean that he gets a -1 to melee and charge attacks, and can execute DOUBLE melee attacks (2 kicks per round or up to 4 punches). He double-kicked the right leg of the Cyclops and down it went. The other one mauled him pretty good, and legged him the next round. But made the mistake of closing to point-blank range to do so. My pilot managed to stand back up (
on one leg) and batter the Cyclops with four punches, knocking out the AC/20. At that point, the other Cyclops said "Fuck this" and withdrew. Sadly, I couldn't chase him down since I was hopping on one leg, but I did manage to turn around and focus all five small lasers on the prone (and unconscious) Cyclops, turning its pilot into a smoking piece of Mech jerky and snagging me a mostly intact Cyclops.
Since then, he's made his home in my Recon lance. There's been more than a couple of missions where he's charged an opposing light mech and literally blown it to scrap just from the charge. I've noticed that even the AI seems to give him a wide berth now.