An expert in the Ork mind and able to speak the Ork Language, Commissar Yarrick played a huge roll in the battle Second War for Armageddon!
Via Lexicanum
In his youth, Yarrick had learned the Ork language from a captured raider, and became an expert in the way the Ork mind worked. Before the Second War for Armageddon began, in 941M41, he had already served in a dozen campaigns as a commissar with Armageddon‘s Planetary Defence Forces and gained a reputation for unswerving loyalty to the Emperor. In fact, he was already of advanced age at the time of the War and was scheduled to retire on the day the Orks landed.
When the first warnings of the Ork landing came, Yarrick was on Armageddon to assist in the founding of the 4th Armageddon Regiment. Yarrick swiftly observed that Ghazghkull was a more cunning and tenacious warlord than previously encountered among Orks, and Yarrick ordered the planet’s astropaths to send a call for help. Herman von Strab, the inept Overlord of Armageddon, insisted that Armageddon could deal with the Ork threat on its own, and banished Yarrick to Hades Hive as punishment for circumventing von Strab’s authority.
Von Strab was grievously mistaken. Under his incompetent leadership, the planet fell bit by bit until the Orks reached Hades Hive. Here, Commissar Yarrick commanded the defending forces, inspiring them to a fanatical degree of bravery and resolve. Not a single soldier was executed for cowardice during the fighting at Hades Hive, even in the face of the overwhelming Ork numbers.
Yarrick himself was always on the front lines during the fighting. He received many battle wounds, the most grievous in single combat with Warboss Ugulhard, who severed Yarrick’s right hand with a swipe from his Power Klaw. Such a wound would have killed a lesser man, but Yarrick’s iron will allowed him to not only survive, but to decapitate Ugulhard with his chainsword and then pull the Power Klaw from his corpse and hold it aloft for all to see.
The sight caused the Orks to flee in terror, while simultaneously causing the human defenders to charge forward with renewed vigour. Only after the Orks had been routed did Yarrick allow himself the luxury of passing out.
The Imperial defence of Hades Hive was so implacable that eventually Ghazghkull himself joined the attack, leading his forces from the front.
He tried to take the Hive by every strategy he could imagine, but Yarrick countered them all. Eventually, Hades Hive became a personal battle between the two warriors. When Ghazghkull fell upon the hive, Yarrick realised they could not hold their position. In a series of daring shuttle runs, the remaining forces managed to escape. Yarrick himself received a near-fatal wound in combat with Ghazgkull, and hovered near death during the final stage of the evacuation.
Commander Dante
Eventually, the war ended with the arrival of Commander Dante of the Blood Angels, whom the defenders of Armageddon turned to for leadership. Although the Space Marines‘ offensive pushed the Orks off the planet, Yarrick’s defense of Hades Hive was recognized as the turning point of the war, and he was hailed as the Saviour of Armageddon.
