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So I've thought a lot about this before, but never bothered to ask the community. However with Hounds of Morkai being added to the new SW 'dex I figure it's sort of topical now.

For me, if I was designing them before initial release I would have gotten rid of their bolt carbines and given them Deathwatch-style Astartes shotguns as their alternate loadout.

They seem to want to be a close quarters hit and run unit, either dropping in on unsuspecting enemies or attacking from unexpected angles by ignoring vertical distances. With that in mind bolt carbines are just way too mundane and weak in addition to not really synergizing with their rules.

Alternatively, if I had to keep the kit as it is now, I would relate them back to Heresy era Destroyer Squads by giving their bolt pistols/carbines rad or chem munitions to double down on the terror aspect.

But what about you? If you were in charge of designing or redesigning Reivers how would you make them desirable? (Both rules and fluff perspectives are fine)

Back off on the durability creep that makes S4/AP- a useless profile?

I wouldn't even have made them a unit entry especially with the new event of Manlet Marines gaining W2. They're like really awful Vanguard Vets now. Like, really awful. No amount of stupid gimmicks and Strats will change this fact.

Especially with the obsec turn off strategem I think they have a place. Problem is that the place is done better by troops like infiltrators and by the Reiver LT.

I would have made them actual jump troopers instead of the hybrid role they get now.

Don't think they're all that bad really. Drop behind lines, perform actions...disrupt enemy actions etc, that's what they do. Not great, but not the worst unit in the game.

first of all I'd look at what Reivers are intended to be, making them good is no use if they're completely against their fluff after all.

Reivers are supposed to be a sneaky unit that sneaks behind enemy lines and terrorizes them, causing their back field to collapse etc.

so with that in mind I'd give them the following stratigum

Fight or Flight: A unit within 6 inches of a squad of reivers must make a LDR roll, if they fail they immediatly move 3 (or 6 whatever works) inches towards or away from the reiver squad as detirmined by the reivers controler.

Boom, now reivers have a purpose and go from being a mostly useless marine unit that no one takes to an INSANELY powerful unit that can turn the tide of battle if you let it get into your lines.

need to push a unit off a objective as at a critical time? done. wanna force that fire team out into the open? done..

actually.... yeah thats proably TOO good.

Firstly, if I was running the Space Marine book there wouldn't be 100 data sheets of similair units. Marines simply have too many overlapping units for them all to be useful.

With respect to Reivers I would have made them the Primaris version of Vanguard Veterans and given them all the melee equipment options to choose from, along with jet packs.

 argonak wrote:
Firstly, if I was running the Space Marine book there wouldn't be 100 data sheets of similair units. Marines simply have too many overlapping units for them all to be useful.

With respect to Reivers I would have made them the Primaris version of Vanguard Veterans and given them all the melee equipment options to choose from, along with jet packs.

I would have made them Primaris assault marines. Grapple guns + Grav chutes = in price jump packs and provide the same functionality. BP+ combat knife should roughly equal be+ chain sword.

 argonak wrote:
Firstly, if I was running the Space Marine book there wouldn't be 100 data sheets of similair units. Marines simply have too many overlapping units for them all to be useful.

With respect to Reivers I would have made them the Primaris version of Vanguard Veterans and given them all the melee equipment options to choose from, along with jet packs.

except that remember the rules are written AFTER the mini is designed.

Melt them down and make candle holders out of them. Step on them as they are useful for creating foot pain... Second worst models in the restartes range. Silly skull masks are cartoonish.

infiltration. 1pts less and move them out of the slot they are in right now, preferably troops.

Make them fast attack. AP on their knives. Power weapons for Sgts. Give them back the grapnel/charge from deepstrike shenanigans.


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 jeff white wrote:
Melt them down and make candle holders out of them. Step on them as they are useful for creating foot pain... Second worst models in the restartes range. Silly skull masks are cartoonish.

Each to their own. I love the look of them, genuinely.

 Leth wrote:
I would have made them actual jump troopers instead of the hybrid role they get now.

This. Increase their movement to jump-pack speed near terrain to portrait them using their grappling hooks and let the sarge have a proper melee weapon.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Leth wrote:
I would have made them actual jump troopers instead of the hybrid role they get now.

This. Increase their movement to jump-pack speed near terrain to portrait them using their grappling hooks and let the sarge have a proper melee weapon.

either that of go full infiltration?
As in combine the infiltrator into the reiver, aka allow Boltguns for reivers and propper infiltrate?

IMO there is more design space left for a melee primaris units than for guys with one special rule and yet another bolter variant.

 Jidmah wrote:
IMO there is more design space left for a melee primaris units than for guys with one special rule and yet another bolter variant.

exactly allbeit why not make it a propper infiltration generalist?

Remove the rule on the impulsor that allows disembarking after moving.

Give to Reivers a rule that says that they can disembark after moving.

I wouldn't have made 3 Phobos Infantry models/profiles in the first place and would have just rolled the Reiver idea into Incursors and Infiltrators.

Incursors get the LD malus and some of the new anti-obsec strats.

Infiltrators can lay down a Mine.

There. Even after only 3 years the Primaris line is suffering from bloat and redundancy, which was one of the main reasons they introduced Primaris to Marines in the first place; to solve that issue. Only before it took them 30 years to reach that point, whereas now they've managed to achieve it in only 3. And worse yet, there are still holes in the Primaris line with them being a "replacement" range so rather than giving them units that actually fill gaps, you get extraneous stuff like 3 different sneaky infiltrating/deepstriking infantry units or 2 different shooty jump pack units.

 Bosskelot wrote:
I wouldn't have made 3 Phobos Infantry models/profiles in the first place and would have just rolled the Reiver idea into Incursors and Infiltrators.

^^^This. The absurd amount of bloat in the SM range is the key reason Reivers are terrible. For pretty much any unit in the SM army there will be 1-3 other units that perform the same role in a slightly different way and one of those options will be worse than the others. To fix that you need to cut back on the bloat a little and define what role a unit should have. In some cases that role might be "nothing" because they're not useful for anything that doesn't already have a unit dedicated to it in the Codex.

SM have 3 Phobos infantry units. 2 of them are Troops and have rules to make them good infiltration/disruption units. Reivers don't really add much, especially when their "terror troops" role is a little non-sensical in a SM army in the first place (they're kind of all terrifying) and isn't a role GW have ever seemed capable of designing well. It almost feels like Reivers were a testbed for designing the rules for Infiltrators and Incursors because those two units are actually useful, though those two could probably also be combined into a single profile quite easily.

I echo the sentiments about moving its slot. Troops seems like a good fit balance-wise - but I feel like that gives Marines too many Troops choices, and would further muddy the case for keeping Scouts in Elites too. So I'd move both Reivers and Scouts to Fast Attack instead, I think.
Besides that, they need a bit of AP to make them shine but I don't think it's appropriate to give it straight to the combat knife. Instead I'm thinking give them AP-1 on the charge, maybe via a strat, or a datasheet ability (disruption grenades maybe?).

 Super Ready wrote:
I echo the sentiments about moving its slot. Troops seems like a good fit balance-wise - but I feel like that gives Marines too many Troops choices, and would further muddy the case for keeping Scouts in Elites too. So I'd move both Reivers and Scouts to Fast Attack instead, I think.
Besides that, they need a bit of AP to make them shine but I don't think it's appropriate to give it straight to the combat knife. Instead I'm thinking give them AP-1 on the charge, maybe via a strat, or a datasheet ability (disruption grenades maybe?).

So remove heavy intercessors from a troop slot ... they belong as ,,, you know,,, heavy ...
Then put the Rievers in.

I think that would be logical.

Simple. I'd make their grav chutes and grapple launcher free. Contrary to how GW portrays them you can take both. So they should lean hard into that, deep strike and excellent vertical movement

Slipspace wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
I wouldn't have made 3 Phobos Infantry models/profiles in the first place and would have just rolled the Reiver idea into Incursors and Infiltrators.

^^^This. The absurd amount of bloat in the SM range is the key reason Reivers are terrible..

not really, reivers just aren't great period. end of the day they're a morale shinnagens unit in a game that has NEVER done a very good job at managing morale shinnagens rules. (and in fact has gotten consistantly WORSE at it)

 fraser1191 wrote:
Simple. I'd make their grav chutes and grapple launcher free. Contrary to how GW portrays them you can take both. So they should lean hard into that, deep strike and excellent vertical movement

That's not a bad idea - that certainly makes them a bit more attractive as they currently are. Sadly they'd immediately be overshadowed by any incoming dedicated Primaris jump unit, unless they really mess that one up.

 Bosskelot wrote:
I wouldn't have made 3 Phobos Infantry models/profiles in the first place and would have just rolled the Reiver idea into Incursors and Infiltrators.

I can't agree enough. You just can't have so many option and make each one different yet interesting. It's beyond ridiculous.

Give them all power weapons stock

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
I wouldn't have made 3 Phobos Infantry models/profiles in the first place and would have just rolled the Reiver idea into Incursors and Infiltrators.

I can't agree enough. You just can't have so many option and make each one different yet interesting. It's beyond ridiculous.

the Phobos units have more differance between them then SOB Battle sisters retributor squads and celestians I mean LITERALLY the only differance there is what guns they're allowed to take!

Their problem is that they largely don't have anything they actually do, much less anything specific better at than anything else.

If they were troops, they could synchronize well with their stratagem, but that would just exacerbate the problems with the missions this edition and how SM interact with them.

Giving them proper infiltrate like the rest of the photos line would help, and moving incursors out of troops would also help make them less bad in comparison, but really reviers are worse incursions basically all the time.

Maybe instead of a block obsec stratagem they could have a stratagem to show up next to a character and attack, like a 3" ambush & charge but can't bad touch anything.

Give the sarge some options. The CC list from the intercessors would be fine

Give the one or both of the grav chutes/grappel for free. Their role is mobility and disruption.

Move to the FA slot. Thematically, this is where they belong.

I’ve been trying to stick with options in the kit or accessory sprues, but they should have the Melta Bomb key word and be equipped with them. Backfield disruption/terror unit without the marine demo charges? Bit silly.

AP 1 on the knives would be nice. Carbines need something as well. But we need less bolter variants, not more.

 Stevefamine wrote:
Give them all power weapons stock

Giggling slightly at the idea of a power knife.



It's just crazy enough that it might work, though...! S4, AP-2, but still D1 - that'd give them a little synergy with their AP-2 pistols...