Bucha, Ukraine - 27 Feb 2022 - 15mm
Valley of Tears - Golan Heights, 1973
So we’ve finished the game. It took 6 hours and 43 minutes. It is posted in its entirety on Twitch for those that are interested. Needless to say, an entire blow-by-blow battle report would be a little too large to post here, so I’ll post some highlights and if anyone has any questions, I will certainly answer them either here or on the new Sitrep Modern Military Gaming thread.
Full Twitch Stream:
So here is the full map again, only this time with Damon's forty tanks of 77th Armored Battalion, 7th Brigade (Lt. Colonel A. Kahalani) deployed on the Tel Hermonit and Booster Ridge, extending north of Kuneitra along the Purple Line at daybreak, 7 October 1973. For my money, this is where scaled wargaming (regardless of the medium) really shines. With enough attention paid to scale, distances, real-life numbers, etc., you can build a board and set up a force, and get an instant "feel" of just how desperate a situation really was. This is forty "Sho't Cal" Centurions (five tanks per platoon / counter = eight pieces), which sounds like a big force ... and would be a big force on a six foot 15mm table ... but then set it up on the actual battlefield that measured 6+ kilometers (250 meters per hex), and that blue line suddenly gets very very thin.
Some of Damon's Sho't Cal Centurions on Booster Ridge, overlooking what history would soon call the Valley of Tears. 
The total Syrian force. Two full brigades of Soviet-built tanks, 100 T-55s, 100 T-62s, plus support vehicles, a reinforced mech infantry battalion, engineers, Sagger antitank missiles, you name it. Historically the Syrians also had formidable artillery off-board, but this scenario out of the AIW book doesn't include it so we're leaving it out (I changed the map, that's probably enough alteration to the published scenario already). Also the Israelis have 20 air strikes ready to go, but I get 2 VP for each air strike Damon feels forced to call in. A special rule allows for one platoon of standard Sho't Centurions to enter the table (the four along the bottom) on a die roll at the beginning of each Israeli movement phase.
Turn one, and first blood is drawn! Under a massive pall of sand and dust, almost 300 Syrian AFVs roll toward the Purple Line (cease-fire line between Syria and Israeli-occupied Golan Heights). But at the range of 12 hexes (3000 meters), Damon's Sho't Cals have already opened fire and scored the first kills, as the Syrian armor pushes through the antitank ditch dug along the 1967 cease-fire line.
Turn Two - Syrian advance continues, lead tank brigades are now fully across the Purple Line, advancing 750 meters before being struck again. Damon has no shortage of targets here, obviously, he has LOS on nearly everything thanks to his elevated positions on the Tel Hermonit hill. So he has to carefully choose his targets. He's picking off APCs still loaded with infantry for double points, as well as mine clearing PT-54 tanks and MTU-12 bridgelayers. 
Speaking of killing bridgelayers, the first Israeli fighter-bomber streaks in to take out my poor brirdgelayers attached to 81st Armoured. Awww! He's just a bridgelayer! They barely have guns! And didn't even shoot at anyone! He just wants to build his little bridges! :(
Things get more serious to the north. Okay, by now Damon has clued in to my intentions. The way the overall map is laid out, there really is only ONE VIABLE PATH for me to make an operational-scale breakout (the point of the Syrian victory conditions). I can't swing to the south because the Bental Reservoir blocks my path. I can't go up the center because he'll collapse both wings on me and butcher me in a crossfire (PRO TIP - in breakthrough games NEVER EVER go up the center). That leaves only the north, which Damon now realizes ad commits another four IAF fighter bombers to blunt. This time I put up counterfire (a heavy decision as this counts as opportunity fire, any Syrian unit that uses it will be unable to fire or move NEXT turn). But it turns out to be worth it, I actually shoot down one F4 Phantom! BA-BOOM! 
A wide-angle view of the situation at the end of Turn 4. Originally feinting to the center, 78th Armored Brigade now pivots and faces northward to join the 81st in a single titanic shove of Soviet-built steel. There are still over 150 Syrian tanks rushing up, and the range has now closed to within 1000 meters in some places (4 hexes).
Increasingly frantic to keep the Syrians at bay, Damon keeps calling in air strikes. Great, but remember I get 2 VP for each air strike he calls in. That's just that much LESS air support going to other sectors that probably need it more, like the tragic 188th "Barak Brigade" - historically fighting a battle perhaps even more desperate to the south.
At last, the Syrians open fire. With lead Syrian elements of 85th Mechanized and 81st Armored just 750 meters from the edge of the table (upper left), Israeli reserves and Damon's redeployed tanks off of Booster Ridge to the south are arriving just in time to seal this possible breach. Seriously, JUST in time, I was within inches of winning the game right here. In his haste, though, Damon moved one platoon of Sho't Cals in the open atop t he north shoulder of Tel Hermonit ridge, and T-62s of 81st Armored blew them to kingdom come. A massive frontal fusillade also opens fire on another of Kahalani's platoons on the top of the ridge, including a hail of dreaded AT-3 "Sagger" guided antitank missiles from that infantry battery hidden in Al Qila. I get on the 7:1 odds column on the Combat Results Table, the deadliest there is, but remember that Damon gets a +2 for hull down shielding and a +2 for Improved Positions (historically, tank firing ramps). This means a total +4 defense bonus on my d6 roll. That a very serious modifier, but I get lucky with a "2" and just barely kill that platoon. That's TWO tank platoons down, a full quarter of Damon's initial force. The first crack has appeared, and I've got my crowbar pushing in deeper every turn . . . 
This was a knife edge game, it really felt at times that I couldn’t stop the advance. Only throwing in the airstrikes bought me a bit of breathing space but it really did feel like I was on the edge of loosing for most of the game.
Thanks, @damon – so glad you liked it. It was virtually all day Saturday to build it and all day Sunday to play it. 😀 But if it was a success it is all totally worth it. 😀 From the Syrian perspective, this game is HEARTBREAKING for the first four or five turns. Literally watching you tanks erased from existence by a “Finger of God” – especially once the range closes to less than 1500 meters. Damon points, that platoon’s dead. Points, that platoon’s dead. Points, that platoon’s dead. Points, that platoon’s dead. That platoon’s dead, that platoon’s dead, that… Read more »