Heights of Courage: The Battle for the Golan Heights (2013)

Heights of Courage: The Battle for the Golan Heights, October 1973, is a game covering the Golan Heights portion during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

In October, 1973, Syria and her allies lead a surprise attack to recapture the Golan Heights in conjunction with an Egyptian assault across the Suez Canal into the Sinai.

For a little over two weeks, massed Syrian armor tried to swamp the Israeli defenders who were buying time to allow mobilized reserves to arrive. They succeeded and managed to turn the tide launching their own offensive toward Damascus.

Heights of Courage is the 16th game in the award winning Standard Combat Series. It complements the 1995 CSR award winning game Yom Kippur (which covers the fighting in the Sinai). It uses the same 8 page standard series rulebook applicable to all the other games.

Because both sides have offensive and defensive phases of the battle to enjoy, victory is determined by comparing the best Syrian performance in their early offensive to the Israeli offensive results at the end of the game. This forces both sides to fight tooth and nail on both the offense and defense with enormous time pressure on perform rapidly.

The game captures all the sizzle of the fast-paced armored battle with enough steak to give the game the appropriate level of depth. For example, it uses an innovative two tempo operational speed, to both players as the battle goes beyond the endurance of the forces involved. Each player can select to go “fast” in order to fight more or “slow” in order to get more replacements.

While Heights of Courage cannot be directly linked to Yom Kippur, the game provides rules to allow players to play both games in tandem so as to play the “whole war.”

Four scenarios allow different looks at the 17 turn campaign (turn length varies based on when a cease-fire occurs).
4.1 The Historical Battle for the Golan Heights (17 turn long version)
4.2 The Historical Battle for the Golan Heights (10 turn short version)
4.3 Operation Badhr (6 turn look at the initial Syrian offensive)
4.4 Operation Al-Owda (Original Syrian plan - which can be played in the 6, 10 or 17 turn versions)

Game Scale:
Game Turn: Half day to 3 days (depending on game turn)
Hex: 1 mile / 1.6 kilometers
Units: Platoon/Task Force/Brigade

Game Inventory:
One 22 x 34" full color mapsheet
One dual-side printed countersheet (280 1/2" counters)
One 16-page Heights of Courage rulebook
One 8-page Standard Combat Series ver 1.7 rulebook
Two 6-sided die

Solitaire Playability: High
Complexity Level: Medium
Players: 2 or more
Playing Time: 4-15 hours