Counter Rhino rush

[Stars-N-Stripes]

I've only found two ways to counter a play who goes with highly upgraded Rhino's.

1) Upgraded Steel Balls
2) Air superiority

There are not enough points to do both it seems. Can't seem to counter someone who keeps putting rhinos down and upgrading them unless I start with steel balls. How is everyone else countering a heavy rhino play?

[puschit]

Never encounter heavy/early Rhino play. But yeah, Steelballs are good as well as Melting Point later. And any unit with emp to disable healing.

[Purple Sauce]

pretty much steel balls and the laser unit.

[ShouteN]

Melting point melts them.

[Adam Earlston]

Idk much, but i was killing several rhinos in 1-2 seconds at the start of every round with Overlords (maybe they weren't upgraded?)
Or is it a bad idea to go with Overlords because they get countered by Melting Point?

[Ksielvin]

Here are some approaches to perhaps combine.

- T1 anti-unit: Marksman. Obviously needs something to distract Rhino and takes a while but they can be a significant part of the damage.
- T2 anti-unit: Steel Ball. The most cost efficient counter at the same tier. Tanks and spanks. Rhinos might take explosion tech to make it a trade. If something else is also dying to the explosion, consider electromagnetic techs. Range tech can save from explosion if something else held it down.
- T3 anti-unit: Melting Point
- Hacker: Rhinos are arguably the most suitable hacking target of all. You might take half of its hp with damage and other half with a hack.
- Phoenix: similar to Marksman
- Wasps with 200% ground damage tech: I've seen this used as primary damage to counter Rhino. Just be mindful if they're safe against enemy anti-air while doing so.
- Stormcaller: as usual, great damage against anything that you can make stay in place. Obviously falters if they get under minimum range.
- T1 distractions: crawlers and fangs. Despite its splash damage, Rhino takes a while going through these without Whirlwind upgrade. Which could be disabled by electromagnetic tech.
- Crawlers with acid. Damage good, slow good! Risky if you think they might take Photon Coating though, and might not fit the plan for the rest of your army.
- Note that since slowing Rhino is so good, Sentry Missiles can help quite a bit. Especially if you can make them also hit another unit in the process.
- Fortress just out-classes Rhino, though it might take like ~30% damage in the process. But lvl 1 Fortress probably can't duel a lvl 2 Rhino.
- Overlord could significantly contribute to the damage. With the cannon tech they could be primary damage.
- A very theoretical one: Ignite tech. It takes 17 seconds of Ignite to deal 102% damage to something. That's too long. But if you deal half of the damage with 8 seconds of ignite then that seems pretty nice. Ignite is found on Vulcan, Fang and Wasp. I think Wasp has better option (the ground damage boost) and on mid-game Vulcan it might be a waste, so Fang would be the candidate. There would have to be a living Fang still shooting at it at the 6 second mark.

Note you generally have to tank/distract Rhino for far longer if they take tanky tech or equipment. This can change the 1v1 match-ups a lot. But usually you have many units contributing damage.

[Askannon]

If you struggle with rhino because of its tech upgrades, you might enjoy some unit with the EMP upgrade (forgot the name), though that gets countered by photon coating. In that case going for Steel Balls is an option, but only so far as it doesn't self destruct. Haven't tried hackers yet, but that might work quite well, if it isn't blocked by photon coating.

In the end, having space to the frontline to wait out the 16s photon coating is an option to reduce the initial impact of Rhinos, therefore lowering the XP spiraling of the Rhino.