Minecraft 1.14, labelled the Village & Pillage Update added the raiding mechanic to Minecraft Villages. New enemies, called Pillagers will not only patrol your game world, but also attack Villages in groups.
Taking part in a raid and ending it successfully can offer a lot of loot and rewards including emeralds, so they’re often worth taking part in. Although they can be very difficult, with a lot of enemy mobs spawning who deal damage from afar.
Below, you can check out our guide for starting a raid in Minecraft whether it be in creative or survival mode. For more Minecraft guides and content, check out our Minecraft section here!
How to Start Raids in Minecraft
If you want to cheat and start a raid manually, walk into a Village in Minecraft and enter the following command, otherwise, keep reading: /effect give @e bad_omen
Having the Bad Omen effect is the easiest way to start a raid. To get Bad Omen, you’ll need to find a Pillager Outpost. These are one of the new structures added with Minecraft 1.14, and they contain Pillagers.
Pillager Outposts are harder to find than Villages, as they spawn every several hundred to thousand blocks. Luckily, they’re quite easy to spot though as the structures are tall and easily visible on the skyline.
Once you find a Pillager Outpost, you’ll need to fight the enemies there. The one we specifically want to kill is the ‘Raid Captain’. This enemy will be carrying a banner above its head. Make sure to bring armor, weapons and plenty of food as there are a lot of Pillagers that spawn and use ranged weapons.
Once you kill a Raid Captain in Minecraft, you will now have the Bad Omen effect which you can check by looking in your inventory. With this effect active, walking into a Minecraft Village will immediately start a raid which you might want to take part in.
You can remove Bad Omen by drinking a bucket of Milk, which can be obtained from cows. If you need to kill a Raid Captain without receiving the Bad Omen effect, you can set them alight using a flint and steel or other method, as the game will think they died due to natural causes.
