Event · M31
Lion’s Gate Spaceport
The Lion’s Gate Spaceport was the principal landing complex beside the Imperial Palace on Terra and a contested position during the Siege of Terra in M31. Built at the Palace’s western approach, it was the main point at which ships from orbit could discharge troops and materiel into the Imperial capital. That function gave it strategic weight once the Warmaster Horus committed his fleets to Terra, because control of the facility would decide how quickly either side could reinforce its lines. The defence of the Palace’s outer works was directed by Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists, who held the office of Praetorian of Terra. The garrison is recorded as drawn from the Imperial Fists and other Loyalist Legion contingents, the Legio Custodes and the Imperial Army, with the Blood Angels under Sanguinius prominent in the wider defence of the Palace approaches. The assault came from the Traitor Legions gathered under Horus, among them the Sons of Horus and forces of Perturabo’s Iron Warriors, whose siegecraft was directed against the fortifications around the spaceport. Accounts differ on the exact sequence of engagements and on which commanders held individual sectors at each stage. The outer defences, including the Lion’s Gate and the spaceport it guarded, are recorded as being lost to the Traitors during the opening phase of the siege. The Loyalists withdrew to the inner Palace, and the Traitors used the captured ground to bring further troops and war machines down from orbit. The loss reduced the area the defenders could hold and shifted the fighting towards the inner walls and gates, including the Eternity Gate, in the later stages of the siege. The spaceport therefore anchors both the map, at the Palace’s western edge on Terra, and the timeline, as one of the first major reversals within the Siege of Terra, itself the climax of the Horus Heresy.
See where Lion’s Gate Spaceport occurred on the galactic map during the Horus Heresy.