IIRC you also got rocket troops in the first mission, which were helpful but didn't fire very fast. But I might be confusing it with the later ones.
Camo bunkers were also useful.
CnC4 always looked too cartoony for me. It looks like a mobile game before Mobile games got huge.
Its weird because the first game's spritework was pretty gritty and 'realistic', ya know for how realistic 30 pixels can be.