I have solved it by putting a login view without any segues (to or from it) like in the screenshot below:

Then, I used a custom class in the tab bar controller to show it whenever I need it.
In the tab bar controller class, I use 'viewDidLoad' to fire up the login view. To show the modal view, I do have a singleton thingy that stores some state, say BOOL isAuthenticated, where I do the magic:
- (void) performLoginIfRequired: (UIViewController *) source {
if (!self.isAuthenticated) {
NSLog(@"Is not authed");
UIStoryboard *storyboard = [UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate.window.rootViewController.storyboard;
UIViewController *loginController = [storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"loginScreen"];
[source presentModalViewController:loginController animated:YES];
} else {
NSLog(@"Is authe");
}
}
And, in my case, I wanted it to be shown when the app first starts, but also when it enters foreground again. So, I registered my tab bar controller with the notification center, so I get notified if the app is coming back:
-(void)viewDidLoad {
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(willEnterForeground:) name:UIApplicationWillEnterForegroundNotification object:nil];
}
In the willEnterForeground method, I do:
-(void) willEnterForeground: (NSNotification *)notification {
[[myStateThingy defaultState] performLoginIfRequired:self];
}