Event · M31
Lion’s Gate Spaceport Assault
The Lion’s Gate Spaceport Assault was the Traitor attack on the Imperial Palace’s Lion’s Gate landing complex on Terra during the Siege of Terra in M31. The Lion’s Gate was one of the principal points where reinforcements, matériel and ships could be received by the Palace, and it was therefore a natural objective once Warmaster Horus’s fleets reached the Sol system. Its capture would have loosened the Loyalists’ hold on the Palace’s outer works and eased the landing of further Traitor forces. The Loyalist defence of this sector is recorded as falling to Sanguinius of the Blood Angels, working within the wider defensive scheme of Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists. The assault opened after the Traitor void bombardment and the first landings on Terra, and formed part of the sustained ground offensive against the Palace’s outer defences. Among the Traitor forces committed to the fighting around the gate, accounts place Angron’s World Eaters and elements of the Sons of Horus, supported by the great mass of mortal and warp-touched auxiliaries that accompanied the invasion. The Loyalist garrison combined Blood Angels with Imperial Army regiments and Palace defenders, holding the approaches against repeated waves of infantry, armour and war engines. Accounts differ on the exact sequence of the fighting, but the gate is remembered as a contest of attrition, in which the defenders were steadily worn down while the Traitors accepted very heavy losses. The assault is recorded as ending with the loss of the Lion’s Gate to the Traitors and the withdrawal of its defenders to the inner Palace, a reverse that compressed the Loyalist perimeter and increased the pressure on the remaining walls and gates. It is best read alongside the other major engagements of the Siege of Terra, notably the fighting at the Eternity Gate and the final confrontation aboard the Vengeful Spirit, in which Sanguinius was killed and Horus was slain by the Emperor. The siege ended with the Traitor defeat in 014.M31 and the Emperor’s confinement to the Golden Throne, and the Lion’s Gate has since been remembered as the point where the Palace’s outer defences first gave way.
See where Lion’s Gate Spaceport Assault occurred on the galactic map during the Horus Heresy.