Mechabellum Rhino Guide
All units Rhino
Rhino
Used against
Arclight
Vulcan
Stormcaller
Crawler
Sledgehammer
Fire Badger
Marksman
Mustang
Typhoon
Countered by
Fortress
Hacker
Melting Point
Steel Ball
Phoenix
Overlord
War Factory
How to play Rhino
It's and aggressive unit that needs to be played aggressively. I mostly use them for shielding my damage dealers. If you are building crawlers for example and the enemy has a Vulcan, you can drop the rhino in front of the Vulcan to draw the aggro and let the crawlers do the work. Rhinos are also great at taking down enemy towers. To accomplish this, you need to push your opponent from multiple directions, pulling his forces away from the command tower thus finding a nice angle for the Rhino mobile beacon.
Rhinos different techs make the unit very flexible. There's so many tech paths that it's up to your imagination how do you want to use the unit.
Mechabellum Rhino counter
Against aggressive rhinos I usually build charged shot phoenix or steel balls deployed vertical to the rhinos. Sometimes a Fortress. If the rhino is high level and has some crazy item, I might build a Melting Point.
When you see a rhino deployed, you need to start thinking about where it can be mobile beaconed and drop stuff in all its possible paths. You can drop sentry missiles on it as they slow it down. Keep in mind it's later negated by the power armor tech. If it's round 2 or 3, you might want to start with a hacker. Do keep in mind you need some damage, like a phoenix to soften it up and something like fangs to keep it in place. If you already have phoenixes, getting jump drive and moving them in the perfect position helps a lot. Overlord with ground cannon is also a solid choice.
Keep in mind that they can tech the final blitz tech to explode the rhino, so don't stack too much stuff in one place. If this happens, you can try to keep the rhino in place and shield the explosion (the rhino must not get under the shield). EMP can counter the final blitz for one round, but after the enemy sees it, he will buy photon coating which negates the EMP effect.
Shielded fangs waste a lot of time for the enemy, even if they have Whirl Wind on their Rhinos.
If you are getting Rhino flanked, dropping an early War Factory that shoots in all directions is very powerful.
Rhino Builds
Listed below are all some highlighted Rhino builds.
Surrey's Rhino build
Photon coating makes itemized and leveled rhinos a lot stronger. Power armor prevent the enemy from missiling your rhinos that are trying to take their tower. Final blitz is good with mass produced rhino and good in some defensive situations otherwise. Whirlwind is good against chaff and medium units that try to block your Rhino. I usually go Whirlwind as my only tech. If the Rhinos actually seem good after that I go power armor and build an overlord with photon emission near it.
Rhino Technologies
Listed below are all available technologies for Rhino, their viability and how to use them.
Photon Coating
Covers the unit with a photon coating, reducing damage received by 30% for the first 25s of battle and grants immunity to electromagnetic, ignition and acid effects
300
This tech bring up the rhinos powerful by a lot. It's usually my first or second tech.
Armor Enhancement
The effect increases with unit level, reducing damage received by 60 per level. Additionally, increases HP by 35%.
200
The armor is used to block fast shooting units like Mustangs. If you tech the armor, the enemy will counter the Rhino with Steel Balls for example. If you need to block damage with armor, it's better to do it with for example Sledge hammers because they are harder to clear since there are 5 guys in the pack instead of 1.
Whirlwind
When there are multiple enemies around, Rhino will use Whirlwind to attack all surrounding enemies, dealing 1.5 times the damage of Rhino's attack power over a long time
250
Insane against Crawlers, fangs, Sledgehammers, Mustangs and any other unit that has multiple characters in the squad.
Power Armor
Increases HP by 25% and grants immunity to slow
300
Crazy tech for bringing down enemy towers. The main benefit is to counter sentry missiles which otherwise slow your rhino. It also helps in base races as your rhinos become immune to the slow provided by your tower dying (or oil). If you are doing rhino rushes with mobile beacon, this is the most important tech for you.
Mechanical Rage
Increases the movement speed of units by 5m/s and reduces attack interval by 0.3s
200
Mostly the movement speed increase is very relevant in many situations. Whirlwind is usually a lot better and teching them both is usually a bit of an overkill.
Field Maintenance
Automatically restores 4.5% Max HP per second upon taking damage
300
Might be sometimes insane if you get high level Rhinos from the unit drops. But usually not since the rhinos will get countered by Steel Balls or Melting Points.
Wreckage Recycling
Upon destroying an enemy, recovers HP equal to the enemies HP
100
For such a low cost, it ups the power level of your rhinos considerably. It's a tempo play for the early turns. Depending on how you use your rhino, you might want this.
Final Blitz
Rhino activates a self-destruct mechanism at 0 HP, dealing damage equivalent to Rhino's Max HP to all units within 48m
250
You might not use this every game, but it gives so much flexibility to rhinos that it's a must pick. It also server as a scare for your opponent when he sees that you can tech the self destruct.
