There are three scenarios I found that have timers. I hate timers in games. "We must defeat the evil in 20 minutes or we are doomed!" silliness. Alright, I can accept that you can create a new unit at full strength in the time it takes you to walk to the next city, and I can even accept that for gameplay's sake, you don't even know where the nearest city IS. But if you say "if we must get to X by Y time, or we'll be overwhelmed by evil" then OVERWHELM me! Don't just end arbitrarily end the scenario (even if I happen to be a split second from winning it) since I didn't get "it" done before the magic timer ran out. Whomp me with a ton of evil units, but don't just say "game over" like some cheesy 80's videogame. If I've been able to build up a monster army, or a resilient economy, or defenses in depth, just maybe I'll survive!
Anyway, rant mode off. Here are the three scenarios. I introduce them by their backgrounds, since I don't recall the exact scenario name. You'll recognize them when you hit them:
1) "Two groups of Raksha are fighting, keeping each other in check. If you defeat one, the others will multiply soon to overwhelm you." What this means in Kohan-terms: there is a giant hive on the east edge of the map, and one on the west edge. If you destroy one, you have a scant five minutes to destroy the other or you lose. If you have an army of 84 soldiers, one square away from the undefended hive having destroyed all the raksha, doesn't matter, you lose. To solve: Simple - once you find one hive, destroy all the sub-hives around it. Plant a heavy unit or two right next to the giant hive, and leave them there to destroy any new unit spawned. Then send the rest of your army to find the other hive. Once you find it AND destroy defending units/minor hives, attack them both simultaneously. Unless you've severely misjudged, you should win. Remember, save early, save often.
2) "The evil baddies are mustering an army on the east edge of the map. We must engage them or they'll wipe us out!" What this means in Kohan-terms: you have 20 minutes to cross a totally black map, and fight an unknown enemy force. There is a desert in the middle of the map - go north or south of it with everything you have. The south path has (IIRC) fewer towns, but a drake that has nice tech. Only wandering Raksha troops will bother your main city, so the militia can guard it. The whole goal of this map is get across the map! Basically, take each town you encounter, and while you have a pile of cash, put it into developments and try to get your income as positive (banks - the second stage of markets - are good for this, free cash and resources). Once you get mostly across the map, you can either save it, and then spread out to find the enemy force, restart and build a ton of troops and drive right at them. Alternately, they just say you have to ENGAGE them, not win. I had some success rushing across the map, grabbing towns, and then sending one puny unit to engage them (getting annihilated, but stopping the clock) then it was only a matter of time.
3) "We have to grab the port city and surprise the evil baddies" - Since when has anyone ever been able to script 'surprise' into an AI foe? This smelled suspicious from the very beginning, and is the only timed scenario I saw that DIDN'T show you the timer. As far as I can tell, you are not meant to win this one. Take your lumps, find some tech (I think there's some on this map), and get out with all your heroes alive. [I found out later by ignoring the scenario end and continuing that you CAN win, but it's a tough fight, even on easy. Of course, once you pass the time limit you 'lose' the scenario technically, so it's a moral victory only.] FYI, a couple of the screenshots come from this scenario - yes, that's the bad-guy army guarding the port city. Har har har.
