Sebastian Yarrick

Commissar Sebastian Yarrick of the Astra Militarum is remembered across the Imperium simply as the Hero of Armageddon, and, among the Orks who have fought him, as "Old Bale Eye," a name spoken with something close to respect. Few Guardsmen in Imperial history have earned an Ork's grudging esteem the way Yarrick has; even Ghazghkull himself is said to hold the old Commissar as the only human worth calling an equal. His legend was forged during the Second War for Armageddon, when he organized and inspired the defense of Hades Hive, breaking the momentum of Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka's first invasion of the world.

It was at the walls of Hades that Yarrick paid the price his legend still carries: the Ork Warboss Ugulhard severed his right arm with a power klaw in single combat, and Yarrick answered by beheading Ugulhard regardless, then claiming the very klaw that had maimed him as his own prosthetic. His lost eye was replaced with the Bale Eye, a laser-armed bionic that Orks have come to believe can kill with a mere glance, a superstition born that day at Hades and one Yarrick has never bothered to correct. Imperial Guardsmen who served alongside him at Hades still describe the duel as the moment the man became myth, retold in barracks across a dozen sectors long after the battle ended.

Yarrick emerged from retirement decades later for the Third War for Armageddon, pursuing Ghazghkull all the way to the Warboss's own stronghold on Golgotha, where he was captured and, extraordinarily, released, so that the war between them could continue. He commands from the Baneblade Fortress of Arrogance to this day, and though rumor has since claimed his death, no one has ever seen it happen: his legend, like the man himself, refuses to lie down, and every Guardsman on Armageddon still speaks his name as though he might walk through the door at any moment.