OK, so maybe not the most diverse Nod sub faction, but certainly my favorite of the noddy factions, no worrying about stealth, (ooo, can they see me?...uh, yea). And no wrroying about matching and airforce, just have plenty of AA readily available...

The only true down side I can find with the black hand, besides the loss of venoms, (which to be honest i never really used that much personally, but were a welcome addition when you needed them), is that fact that they're unarmed harvesters are also, unstealth...making them extremly vulnerable...

Yeah, the harvester is vulnerable, but is it more so than that of the scrin? While definitely a significant disadvantage compared to the other Nods, it is hardly a crippling blow. Besides, all infantry see stealth at a relatively long range (compared to previous Tiberian games), so it's not really that efficient in guarding your harvesters.

Of course, the most lovely thing in this subfaction is their upgrade where you get a black hand with each militia squad. Rocket Militia were already ass-kicking before, now they're even better.

yes ineed, it only takes about 13 seconds to get a confessor cabal squad on the field from the start of a match, and maybe 14 for a rocket squad...upgrade all the infantry with balck hand diciples and purifiying flame..and u have the re-introduction of infantry as power player even in mid to late game for the first time since yuri's revenge in my book.

b/c once it was made that any vehicle could kill infantry instantly by running over them (no matter how truly real that is..), they lost most of their appeal to me, beyond scouting and such....
plus, the confessor cabal, not only get the black hand disciples, and they the purifying flames..but the charged particle beam really helps the cabal squads in my mind..making the cheapest infantry available acctually worth paying for beyond the first 5 or so minutes of a match...

Is it just me, or does the Black Hand's Purifier seem to smolder just about everything? After a few games in Global Conquest mode, I have never seen a strike force containing Purifiers lose, ever. I've had fully upgraded Tier 3 bases demolished entirely by 3 purifiers which is rather... frustrating. On the flip side, when I'm in skirmishes as the Black Hand, they do come in handy when tearing an enemy base to shreds.

Fire does seem to be a key ingredient to destruction in C&C3, nothing is safe.

well, its the rock-paper-sissors system they put in it...
fire counts as the grenade type, which is mainly effective verses infantry and buildings..
try putting the purifyers on aggressive stance and walking them through an enemy base, be careful of armour and aircraft, but beyond that, you can just about put them on one side, order them to march to the other side and look away, handle other business...when you come back there will be purifyers where your opponents base used to be...lol it would also pay to make sure u have the purifying flames upgrade, i found out today just how big of a difference it makes....a big one, if you're gonna play with the black hand, get the purifying flames upgrade, no questions asked...

i love black hand, and i almost exclusively play them now

they are extremely good rushers in that they can get black hand and purifying flames with confessors and rocket squads within minutes and harass the shit out of a base, and they also have a strong endgame with the purifiers.

my only beef with black hand is that without laser capacitors, my main tank went from scorps to flame tanks which are pretty fragile and costly compared to mass scorps. also, without stealth tanks, i have to build mantises just for AA which can only attack air

yes, yes, it is a real shame about the AA trouble...the black hand does have a little trouble against air power, so its best to try and keep ur opponent grounded...however..

despite their seeming lack of armour, when they have the tiberium core missiles upgrade, i used just 5 mantises to take down 2 scrin PACs and at least 1 devastator b4 i lost my mantises...if they were more well armoured, and maybe cost a couple hundred bucks less, the mantis would be a true answer to the black hands mobile AA deficiency...

but i guess we'll just have to deal with what we're dealt, either way, the black hand excels at base destruction...

when u guys play black hand, what are ur tech priorities?

upgrades and infantry are imprtant to the blackhand, at least early on...once you have black discples and purifying flame from the secret shrine infantry becomes very valuable...plus, once u get the charged particale cannon from the tech center, then ur lowest tech infantry, the confessor cabal, becomes deadly VS other infantry and even some light armoured vehicles...

point is, feel free to spam rocket guys once u get the secret shrine upgrades, b/c there is no situation they cant handle at that point...Vs infantry the disciple will handle it, Vs armour they're rocket guys, Vs air once again, rocket guys, Vs structures, hell, both r good at that, and with the black disciple, they even clear garrisoned buildings
although i would recommend sending at least a few comfessor squads with em, but mostly rocket guys, once u get the proper upgrades, and thats the infantry side of it...

for armour, quickly turn ur attention to the purifyer, esspecially with purifying flames upgrade, just assure that u send anti air and maybe anti armour with em, and there practically unstoppable...

and heres an idea for the patch, assuming they do 1 for kane's wrath. Since the black hand harvester is not stealthed and has no form of self protection, how about if they increase its load capacity to compensate?

In the patch for C&C3 they reduced the capacity of all harvesters from $2000 per trip (when full), to $1400 per trip (when full). but since the black hand has no protection for their harvesters, i think bumping the capacity up to maybe $1500 to even $1800 per trip would be nice..

the only thing about that is, then u'ld have ppl complaining that they only lost to the black hand b/c the BH can naturally gather tiberium faster...its a debate to rage i guess..but its an idea i wanted to present for the scrutiny of neoseeker C&C3KW fans...

The Harvester just needs an armour buff, that's all.

About BH themselves, I have both good feelings and bad feelings, gameplay-wise they're awesome, both fun and powerful. Purifying flame needs to get more expensive, it's ridiculously powerful for $2000 better than railguns! And as cypher said get the Confessors Charged particle beam and you have to use them in unit mixes. For example 3 Black hand squads+ 7 Missle squads + 6 Confessor squads and you have an extremly deadly force.

The Bad feeling I have is story-wise. I was hoping that the Black Hand were some high-tech top elite forces of Nod just like in Renegade, not some primitive fools who anyone can join. At the very least EA could have put another name for this sub-fation.... Pyromancers... I dunno but the Black Hand story-wise has been ruined.

THAT would be marcions fault, (and i dont even know if i spelled his name right BTW). But beyond that, it does erk me that kane seems to think more of the marked of kane than the black hand. in my opinion, the black hand could beat the marked on the their worst day. i just dont see the appeal of the cyborgs, they're decent and all, but i much prefer the BH.

I'm still hoping that EA can introduce a new sub-faction similar to the old Black Hand,they could name it Black Hand Ultra or something. Story-wise they could say that The real Black Hand was hiding under Kane's instructions and were monitoring the brotherhood all along... I want to command those sneaky black hand laser rifle squads, or those heavy laser chain gun squads, it was so much better than "YES! YES! FIRE.... WE NEED MORE FIRE.... OOOHHHH...BURN THEM..."

all i can say to that is...


lol

In my opinion, I don't like the Black Hand as they lose stealth (I like stealth tanks as a large group can care care of most things, especially with tiberium core missiles, and specters are a lot more venerable without stealth) so bases are easy to see and they have no sneak attack capability. They also have no aircraft, and vertigos are really good, (I think so anyway). Though they have flame tanks, they can't use cloaking field and sneak them in to someone's base (great fun that).