In addition to the six sub-factions, Kane’s Wrath adds new units and abilities to the core factions. Most important is the addition of an epic unit for each side. GDI adds the Slingshot anti-air unit, the Shatterer sonic tank and the Hammerhead attack aircraft to their roster. The GDI epic unit is the M.A.R.V., which is an enormous tank that can refine tiberium right off the battlefield and is armed with an extremely powerful sonic cannon. The M.A.R.V. also has the ability to permanently garrison four squads of infantry adding their abilities to its own.

The Brotherhood of Nod has a few new tricks up their sleeve as well. New Nod units include the Reckoner, which is an APC that can deploy into a bunker, and the Specter stealth artillery tank, which can wreak havoc on buildings from a great distance. Nod’s epic unit is called the Redeemer. It’s a much bigger version of the Avatar with four legs and more firepower. Like the GDI M.A.R.V., the Redeemer can garrison infantry to increase firepower and versatility but it also has a "Rage Generator" that can cause enemy units to attack each other.

In order to keep up with the Joneses, the Scrin bring a new superfast infantry unit called the Ravager to the battlefield along with a new vehicle called the Mechapede. The Mechapede can add different segments to its body depending on the tactics a battle requires. The Scrin epic unit is the Eradicator Hexapod, which can refine resources from destroyed enemy units, garrison infantry and teleport. These epic units won’t help much in the quick games but they can break stalemates and blast through heavy defences granting access to the soft, juicy innards of an enemy base. In addition to new units and epic units, each faction gains a few new support buildings, new upgrades and a few new abilities.

New epic units like the Nod Redeemer and the GDI M.A.R.V. bring more power to the battlefield.

The most surprising feature of Kane’s Wrath is the new game mode known as Global Conquest. Command & Conquer games have always been about speed and action, especially in the case of C&C3, which makes Global Conquest mode a new breed of C&C game. Global Conquest mode is a Risk-like turn-based strategy game that uses the real-time engine for the battles. It’s the same idea behind War of the Ring mode in Battle for Middle-Earth II and the campaign mode from Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade. This is a first for a C&C game and I’m not sure the fans will take to it. It’s complicated; it’s turn-based and it takes longer than 20 minutes to finish. I enjoy when RTS games add these kinds of game modes because it gives the individual battles context in a bigger picture.

When armies collide in Global Conquest mode, you’re taken to the RTS level to sort out the winner (unless you opt to let the computer auto-resolve the conflict) but there’s a very important difference: after three minutes all the fog of war is removed from the map allowing you to see everything and after six minutes all stealth is removed. Usually the strategy meta-game is layered over the existing RTS mode unchanged, but the RTS battles are not meant to go on very long in Global Conquest mode. They’ve taken the speed and action part of C&C 3 and made it faster while adding a turn-based component that’s slower.