What Happens If You Surrender to Every Faction in 40K

What Happens When You Surrender in Warhammer 40K?

A soldier’s surrender may briefly stop the shooting—but in the grim darkness of Warhammer 40K, it only changes the question from “Will they kill me?” to “What can they use me for?”

The video compares six potential captors, then adds one final danger: trying to return home.

The T’au Empire

The least immediately horrific option. Surrender means disarmament, questioning, and months of re-education. You might eventually become a human auxiliary, or Gue’vesa.

You may receive better rations and more answers than you did in the Imperial Guard, but your new life is still carefully managed. Refusing to cooperate can cost you your freedom—and your family.

Genestealer Cults

At first, being taken in by a Genestealer Cult can feel like finding fellow survivors. Then the Patriarch’s “kiss” infects you and links you to the brood mind. You may feel more devoted and accepted than ever, right up until the cult’s Tyranid allies arrive and treat everyone as biomass.

The dark joke is that later generations can look so human that they may enlist in the Guard.

Orks

Orks don’t interpret raised hands as a formal surrender so much as a sign that the fight has stopped being fun. You’re likely to be put to work hauling scrap, tending generators, or serving as a target.

Their one small mercy: they may eventually get bored of tormenting you.

Necrons

Most Necron forces won’t take prisoners at all. If a dynasty chooses to enslave you, you may be forced into labor—and mind-shackle scarabs can make your body keep working after your will is gone.

Being labeled “useful” is ominous, not reassuring.

Chaos

Your fate depends on both the god and the warband:

• World Eaters may kill you outright.
• Nurgle’s followers may turn you into a carrier or cultist.
• Tzeentch may alter you in ways you don’t even realize.
• Slaanesh’s interest in keeping you alive is its own warning.

The legions vary, too: some recruit or absorb people, while others convert, terrorize, infiltrate, or enslave them.

Drukhari

To the Drukhari, surrender is simply convenient packaging. Raiders take captives to Commorragh, where prisoners may be sent to arenas or handed to Haemonculi. They prolong suffering because the agony itself is valuable.

The video presents this as the clearest example of a fate worse than death.

The Imperium: On the Way Home

Even surviving captivity may not save you. Imperial authorities may suspect corruption or ideological contamination—or simply wonder why you didn’t die defending your world.

Former prisoners can be isolated, reclassified, or killed, especially if they’ve seen an enemy treat people better than the Imperium does.

The Bleak Punchline

Survival isn’t a finish line. Seven different powers may have different reasons to keep you alive, and your own side may still decide you’re safer gone.

The video closes by asking which fate viewers would choose—and which they’d trade for a bolt round.

Named Figures and Personas

• The Genestealer Patriarch
• Archon Urllok Horus
• Abaddon
• Konrad Curze
• Perturabo