Spoiler
Love a bit of Kubus slander but good on you for reffing a big comp event solo, I wouldn't have the balls to do it myself.
Respect 💖
Thank you Kubus for accepting to take care of our match. You did your best and that's what matters in the end regardless of the few hiccups.
Can't stress enough how messages like this are important to balance out some stuff that was written last night. I don't blame anybody, in the heat of the match it's hard to refrain yourself when you are facing questionable decisions. But anyone who experienced referring an NW match (in such a complex format especially) can relate how hard it is for one individual to keep an eye on everything that's happening so as a reference for next time, the slightest touch of empathy shown during and/or straight after the match usually goes a long way. Remember that some banter on TS within your private sphere does not equal +20 messages that - although taken alone wouldn't carry much weight - can be interpreted as rather offensive/aggressive when added up.
About the match itself, I won't lie, I didn't necessarily have a good time but it was still as competitive as it gets. The first round could have set the tone for a really fast & aggro playstyle on both sides but the following ones showed exactly the contrary. From my perspective, the whole encounter can be summed up by both cavalry regiments having the potential to be decisive in the late round, so whoever managed to keep most of it alive was ensured to have a large advantage in the final fight. This led to very delayed rounds, almost no enjoyable (brawly, evenly chaotic) melees on either side and pushed the 'run away, shoot & delay tactics until all charge was called' to an extent that was not particularly entertaining from the infantry perspective. The all-charge itself was no fun-saviour either as we ended up getting circled by cavalry on pretty much every occasion, which for anyone who played competitive cavalry for a time, was the equivalent of giving 25+ dismounted heavies short lances and asking the hussars 'go kill them but please don't take too much time'.
Obviously, as the last part of my sentence hints it, I am not blaming the cavalry on either side for refusing any form of fight till one regiment had taken the upper hand (number wise), neither do I think the rule about staying mounted in all-charge should be re-written. It makes perfect sense and there wouldn't be much point in having cavalry in the first place if you force them to drop all of their advantages as soon as the round gets tense. I am only trying to demonstrate that in matches where both coalitions are on a somewhat even play-ground, the tactics that must be used in order to guarantee the win are simply not enjoyable, at least from the perspective of the infantry.
Now I would still argue the better team won last night. We (IVe) could have at least guaranteed a draw if it wasn't for the huge mental breakdown/tactical mistake/lack of communication (delete as appropriate) from our leadership in the opening round of the second half. From that point on, I believe we lost ourselves the match as the Team 9 coalition was simply way too experienced/skilled to let such an opportunity run away from them. Good game, good luck for next and hopefully we'll get you next time.
PS: @Erik As a golden rule for next time, I would argue it's part of the leaders' responsibilities to ensure they are playing with the correct numbers at all times and that the ref(s) should only have to be held accountable for reminding the regiments of the balance that must be observed, not doing the maths for them in the first place. I think you will agree with it's neither fair nor right to expect a solo ref to be checking the numbers of each regiment at the beginning of each round when he has a lot of other things to take care of.
