Reiver

We have Sly Marbo Marines now! Piss yourself Chaos scum!

"All Space Marines are experts of the rapid strike, but Reivers take these skills to the next level. They are specially trained and equipped to launch brutally effective and unexpected assaults. They do this with a sudden fury and shocking violence, for the Reivers fulfil the role of terror troops that sow fear and confusion amongst their foes."

– Games Workshop

"Boo"

– A Reiver

Our Super Super Marines have Catachan Jungle Fighters in power armor now. A Reiver (named after 16th Century English-Scottish border raider clans), who is usually part of a Reiver Squad, is a new type of combat specialist unique to formations of Primaris Space Marines who is tasked for rapid infiltration and lightning assaults. Where the Intercessors are the defensive battle line heavy infantry of the Primaris Astartes, the Reivers are elite assault specialists given special training and wargear. The Raven Guard and White Scars are known to favor their use to supplement their own fast attack doctrines.

The Reiver squad is armed with over-sized combat knives glimmering with disruption fields, heavy bolt pistols that are more effective against armor, and "shock grenades" that prevent opponents from firing on them in overwatch and penalizing their hit rolls. Their helms are death’s heads, with their left pauldrons enlarged to provide better protection in melee.

Their armor is stripped down to be eerily silent, adapted for stealth work (and they watch veeery carefully for twigs). Reivers are a specialized infiltration and close-combat unit. Essentially, they are Primaris Reasonable Marines. They are also totally not Night Lords, even though they wear skull helmets, are used to "terrorize" enemy units, and have a bad habit of leaving enemies flayed and out in the open—this is represented by reducing opponents' Ld by 1 simply by being 3" away, stacking up to Ld-3 if multiple units are in range.

And another interesting tidbit. The skull helmets apparently incorporate weaponized loudspeakers (Possibly 'graciously gifted' by the Howling Banshees during Cawl's time with the Ynnari). Reivers "disrupt the hearing of the enemy with vox-amplified war cries and audio-sonic weaponry", which assumes both that combat is happening in atmosphere and that the enemy is capable of hearing/didn't bring ear protection, but what can you do.

Equipment

Reivers are all equipped with Special Issue Bolt Pistols, the Bolt Pistol version of the Bolt Rifle, with many also wielding a long-bladed combat knife or compact Bolt Carbine. Reivers can also stun enemy infantry with the Shock Grenade stratagem or deploy deep behind hostile lines via grapnel launchers and grav-chutes.

On a side note the “Special Issue Bolt Pistol” (formerly known as the Heavy Bolt Pistol) is in a weird state of canonicity. The lead designer for the Primaris range claims it was only added for balances sake, and codexes/BL seem to be inconsistent on wether it exists or not. (See; Vox Cast 1, the fact the absolver exists and the fact they use a normal bolt pistol model) (the Reiver Bolt Pistol looks quite different compared to regular Primaris Bolt Pistols if one look closely).

For additional range, they can also swap their Combat Knife with the trusty Bolt Carbine which sits comfortably between the Bolt Rifle and the Bolt Pistol, and comes with the snazzy little foregrip kitbashers have been adding to Bolters for years.

The Space Yiffs have their own special variant of Reivers known as the Hounds of Morkai, who are anti-psyker hunting teams protected against the Warp by runic wards and come with a slew of abilities that help in fucking their shit up. They come equipped with special issue bolt pistols which are better heavy bolt pistols with -2AP and carry Runic Totems that prevent them from being targeted by enemy psychic powers as long as they are not the closest target to whoever manifesting that power, as well as granting a 4+ save to any wounds inflicted on them during the Psychic phase (though it actually counts as an ability rather than a wargear). In addition, the typical Reiver's aura of fear was replaced with one that inflicts a penalty for any casting - and this is magnified since they have a second, smaller aura that makes those penalties even worse, meaning that their barking was specially trained to annoy the living hell out of any space wizards. However, GW doesn't seem to have any new models for them, and the image preview accompanying their rules looks like a kitbash between a standard Reiver squad and the Space Wolves Primaris upgrade kit.

Reivers and Phobos in General?

For those who go out of their way to learn about Phobos Marines (if you are reading this page surely you hold some care of interest in this Primaris type). You all might have noticed a certain trend of being "against" Phobos Marines in general. This was due to when a majority of Primaris releases were just Phobos Marines for a time which led to many being worried Gothic was being thrown out to appeal to the "Call Of Duty Tacticool" Crowd, because skull masks in Warhammer 40k somehow mean Ghost from Call of Duty is in the setting.

With the launch of 9th Edition many of these worries have been quelled. However, the distaste of Phobos still lingers with our screaming skull bois being the 1st thing many hate when it comes to nu-marines (on top of the phobos line also having really odd knees). It mostly comes down to personal taste you either want your Space Marines grim gothic knights or tacticool task force 141 mountain dew COD quick scoperzz.

Another thing is many consider Reivers to be one of the most poorly selling/overproduced Primaris Kits currently. As many question why Reivers are constantly bundled and or pushed with whatever new space marine release. This might even extend to the other Phobos Marines as well since for the 2020 Battle Force Boxes the Space Marine box was a full Phobos Force which was met with the typical sighs and complaints and did not instantly sell out oddly much like other battle forces.

On The Tabletop and why are Reivers so odd?

Reivers are also considered one of the worst units in all of Warhammer 40k right now. While this may be a classic over-reaction Reivers have a lot of odd things holding them back from being a rather neat backline disruptor objective grabber. For Starters, Reivers while having the [PHOBOS] keyword for some reason do not have the concealed positions special rule. Apparently the super stealth commandos can't hide in a bush. This contradicts with Reivers in the fluff as they are said to be devastating melee troops who sow terror and death behind enemy lines. So yeah 'devastating' melee super troopers with.....AP 0 D 1 Combat knives (keep in mind, fucking INCURSORS have AP -1 combat knives). Oddly enough a major thing going for Reivers is their Special Issue Bolt Pistols (S4 AP-2 D1) can reach AP-4 if you use specific chapters and Doctrine buffs effectively making their bolt carbine option rather useless.

Reivers have 2 war gear options that being a Grav chute that lets you deep strike, and grapnel launchers. Grapnel Launchers are very weird in that unless you are playing on a table with Infinity tier terrain you wont get a lot of use out of them unless you like outflanking, because yah grapnels let you outflank. The grav chutes are the typical deep strike fair and will be the loadout you wanna rock.

Reivers did get some slight changes when it came to 9th edition. Their "Terror Troops" Aura has been morphed into a rather interesting 2 CP Strat which effectively will remove all objective secured and any special rules regarding holding an objective agasint enemy units. This is freaking MAJOR for 9th edition and the focus on objectives. Also, their leadership debuff was changed, with any reiver within 3' of an enemy unit must roll 2d6 if the outcome is higher than the enemy unit's leadership once the target fails all actions. However, again most people suggest you run a single Reiver Lt. Over an entire squad if you really wanna get the most of the rule and many consider the rule will not be that game changing as it sounds.

The Shock Grenades remain the same for 1 CP that it prevents Overwatch AND gives the opponent -1 to hit in combat.

Overall, an odd unit that has some odd rules holding it back however you are still playing space marines so it's not all that bad unless you wanna be really competitive. Most Comp players suggest using that single Reiver Lt. however if you like the models themselves they are not horrible you just gotta play to their strengths.

That all being said however the Reiver kit it self gets a tentative recommendation for those of you who like kit bashing models. Reiver's can take either bolt carbines or knives and pistols, but the carbines require two hands, meaning if you get one reiver kit you get 20 set's of arms, including tacti-cool bolters, to put on other marine's of your choice.