What is it ?

A mod making its own pillage update on top of the "village and pillage" one, adding and tweaking content mainly related to raids and illagers;

What does it offer ?

Tweaks and changes in how raids are started : they are now caused only by burning ominous banners , meaning starting one is something you intend to do, no longer something you accidentally cause (note that at the moment of making this review this mod isn't in 1.21+).
Changes in behaviors to pillagers making them slightly smarter by shooting you from further away, while still being pretty easy to deal with in melee; another change was made to the evokers now receiving a temporary shield from their totem if killed by a projectile (preventing you from sniping them in woodland mansions or raids), and vexes having received a necessary tweak in health making them still dangerous with how much damage they can deal while reducing how annoying they were. Evokers now also sometimes drop an item allowing you to use their fang attack, which gives them a new drop on top of totems (of which are now shared with a new mob we'll see down there afterwards).

This mod adds a couple of new illagers and features related to them which I'll discuss here :

The Iceologer is pretty much the same as in minecraft dungeons , though he does receive a new attack which can make the first attack stronger as if you do not manage to dodge it you will get slown down and will have a hard time dodging the falling ice.

The Griefer is by far my favorite added by the mod -> this mob is tied to a rework of the creeper's behavior which is closer to mojang's current philosophy for new hostile mob concepts, while bringing to life a theory many had on the creepers's goal when exploding. The Griefer is also pretty interesting combat-wise has it will never stay "out of reach" for too long as it will eventually attack you in melee a bit if it has thrown too many spores (their foot-kicking animation is so funny to me and I don't know why I find it that hilarious). You can also use these spores and blast-proof plating to make blast-proof blocks as well as a griefer armor set which makes you resist explosions and their knockback better (the Griefer also sometimes spawn using some pieces). There is also some other stuff related to more directly using the spores like a new type of arrow and spore tnts.

The Executioner ends up being my least favorite . let me explain. This mob while looking quite good doesn't have much in terms of custom sounds nor AI, it is just a buffed vindicator , it just so happens to look much better in my opinion. The concept of its custom blade (the cleaver) is that you can behead players and it's cool, but it's not nearly as interesting as it sounds if you're mainly focused on playing alone with this mod (it really will look like a "slower deadlier sword" to me to be honest).

The Trickster is a bit of an in-between to me; that jester-looking fella does what you might expect from its name : it performs tricks, exchanges places with you, slows you down and prevent you from jumping when inside its spell, and I think this mob looks better than the Griefer (and sounds better too, I have something for mobs with unique sounds); it's purpose in raids is basically to get you in harder positions as slowing you down will make you really vulnerable when it comes to vindicators ( and the executioner's deadly blade ) and teleporting you in its place is more likely to get you near enemies too. I feel like this mob could have done more, but for a mod aiming to be vanilla+ it makes sense why the Trickster wasn't given more abilities. They do give a nice mask to get sneaky around mobs and players, which is nice.

It is of note that this mod also overhauls the Pillager Outpost by changing a bit its looks, adding a few vindicators here and there, more loot chests and also sometimes integrating the Griefer with its own creeper enclosure , adding another chest here with custom loot. That overhaul is also somehow compatible with Town and Towers even though you will probably find much more towns and towers-type outpost than savage and ravage ones.

In conclusion

I quite like this mod, and it works well with other illager mods such as it takes a pillage if you want to double down on the medieval atmosphere, or illage and spillage / illager invasion if you simply wish to add as many illagers as you possibly can to raids.

Like many illager-adding mods I wish there was simply more in terms of config options especially when it comes to the presence of each of the entities in raids, and I would have liked it better if the executioner had more going for it too;

That said this mod is very good, idk go play it or smth