Red Mission Timer - Meaning?

[THH149]

In the last h2h game I played the timer counted down to zero then it turned red and started counting up, seemingly giving the players extra time (benefitting me). The briefing showed no note about extra time. I searched the rule books and there's no mention of this.

Don't all scenario's end when the counter gets to zero? Is the extra time legal to count for Victory? Why doesn't the briefing explain?

Best

THH

[Combatintman]

The scenario designer decides whether variable extra time is present in a scenario.  Variable extra time slots are 0-5 minutes, 0-10 minutes and 0-15 minutes.  The program using an unknown variable/rule decides:

• Whether that extra variable time occurs.
• How much extra time to allocate from the chosen block
  • e.g. it might allocate 14 minutes of a 15 minute time block during one play through of the scenario and only two minutes on the next play through.

The content of the briefing is up to the scenario designer if they choose not to tell you that variable extra time is available then that is their choice.  I generally don't do so in my scenarios because if the player thinks they've got an extra 15 minutes they will likely adjust their plan to account for those extra minutes.  This causes irritation when they find that instead of getting 15 minutes, they only get two minutes, or 14 minutes using my example above.  Think of extra time as an unexpected bonus or maybe when playing H2H, have a rule between you and your opponent in which you both agree to ceasefire at the end of the mission's original allocated time.