Honestly, it's no wonder why the Battle - Tribunal war started. I'd probably go blind with boredom or mad with frustration playing battle right now as you either have to constantly retrieve against non-mage imperials or sit idle. Well maybe I'm exaggerating here. I love the cabal too much

Having just finished playing Nexun I can say that I spent about 50% of the time in the cabal alone. If not more. While there are mage characters in Nexus that I loved, there just isn't enough of them around consistently to give Battle a challenge. Part of this is the low playerbase numbers, I concede.

As you pointed out, hunting Outlander mages is very difficult as a Villager. Fortress mages just avoid you for the most part unless you are evil, and alot of times even then, unless they are a bad matchup for you or they have backup.

The cabal system is really the catalyst behind a lot of PK action. Not having a cabal that's designed to counterbalance Battle is bad for Battle in my opinion. At least when Scion was around it did somewhat fill that void. It's already been said that Nexus wasn't designed to consider Battle an outright enemy. It just so happens to work out that way most of the time with the balance.

Battle is by far my favorite cabal in this game and I'd hate to see it leave the game. In theory it can exist the way it does because there will always be mages/magic in Thera and the players like to play it, but, in reality it's become more of a secondary thing to do for orcs & imperials when their main enemies aren't around to oppose them.