This week we take a look at arguably one of the most strategic maps in Counter Strike, de_train. Train is a map which has interestingly become more and more Terrorist sided as time has gone by and can arguably be heavily Terrorist sided depending on the matchup between the teams. Crucially, the map's Counter-Terrorist side relies on good communication and teamwork to allow your team to rotate well. By reading this guide, we hope you will gain a basic understanding of the tactical base for the map, as well learn all the smokes, Molotovs and flashes required to execute said strategies.

Counter-Terrorist Side

The most commonly run Terrorist pistols are B Site rushes or quick Outside executes, often with an emphasis on Popdog or Ivy. A good way to get early information on the Counter-Terrorist pistol round is to have your player with the best spawn peek B Upper into T Halls. He will beat the Terrorists there and will often get a kill or two as well as some extremely useful information. A second B player should aim to play a committed, but relatively long-range angle, such as on top of the back of White Train. Your weakest pistol player should buy a kit and smoke for the bomb, before heading to Connector, spotting A Main and preparing to quickly rotate to the B Bombsite if necessary. The final two players should play close together around Ivy and Green Train, with one initially focusing on Popdog's entrance and the other looking all the way down Ivy.

Counter-Terrorist anti-eco rounds are relatively simple affairs on Train, as long as you play defensive, long-range angles. On this round, your players should prioritise Molotovs and nades to delay and deny Terrorist bomb plants. On the B Site, simply have two players with rifles play on top of the rear trains, who can "double nade" and Molotov the bombsite if the Terrorists rush B. Towards Outside, simply play the same positions as you did on the pistol round, again focusing on maintaining long-range angles and your own life, while denying the bomb plant with your utility. If the bomb goes down, you can simply retake the bombsite together, while one player defuses the bomb inside of a smoke.

On gun rounds, it's highly important that you remain unpredictable on the Counter-Terrorist side. It is far too easy to sit back passively on either bombsite and give the Terrorists lots of map control around A Main, Ivy and the T Halls, whilst having an extremely static and easily countered AWP. You need to be constantly changing the defense and having your AWPs move around the map going for picks. Sometimes play aggressively with two rifles Outside close to Ebox and Popdog with the AWPer peeking into Ivy. Maybe other times you have an AWP peek up B Ramp, with a rifler at B Upper waiting to peek on his contact. Such a setup can also be implemented at Ivy, with a rifler in the Ivy cubby while the AWPer sits at the top of Ivy. Learn some one-way smokes and make the Terrorists feel uncomfortable every time they see one. You simply have to be constantly adapting your defense and the only way to prevent gaps from forming is to focus on clear communication. At the same time, simple aggressive moves both early and late in the round can grant you lots of easy kills and information. One example is flashing your two Outside rifles into A Main at the start of the round.

All of this said, a base for all of your Counter-Terrorist setups should revolve around having four players head towards Outside early in the round, with one player being in a position where they can quickly rotate to B the moment there is any threat of a push towards B. I would suggest having your stable, anchor player who doesn't get easily tilted and is very smart head towards B,. He should only rotate off of B when the bomb has been spotted on the other bombsite and should not shy away from being aggressive early in the half in order to work out how the Terrorists are holding B Halls. One word I will add to this is that he needs to consider the effect of him dying, as this can easily lead to a round loss. So, this should only be done when your team has the economy to survive a round loss.

Outside, you should build your defense around two duos compromised of a confident AWPer and rifler, with one duo being primarily around Connector, the Site Train and Stop Sign. The other duo should focus on holding Ivy and contributing towards the Outside hold from Green Train and Hell. However, these duos should not be set in stone for every round, for example, if you wanted to play aggressive Outside. On your team, it might make most sense for the rifler from either duo to be the aggressive riflers, whilst the AWPers hold Ivy and Connector respectively.

One aggressive push you can do on the Counter-Terrrorist side of Train is the NRG B Halls push, introduced to the scene by Gob B's NRG and popularised by Cloud 9. This push involves any outside player, but preferably your AWPer, to run to Connector and throw the shown smoke for B Halls, while two player rush B Ramp. The flash shown should flash any players running down the Alleyway, as well as anybody close in B Halls. Once the initial push has finished, the two players pushing B Halls can resmoke and hold the map control, they could fall back and leave the area open, or (most commonly) leave just one player to hold the area, allowing you to stack an extra player towards Outside. If you want to be even more aggressive, you could even attempt to boost up towards the Alleyway, but this should be treated as a big risk and only really attempted if you are on a force buy.

Terrorist Side

On the Terrorist pistol round, often a simple approach is the best approach and Train is not an exception to this rule. Four players should buy armour and your weakest pistol player should buy a smoke and Molotov. As a five man unit, you should simply rush towards the B Site, with three armoured players rushing out Ramp and the other two players heading towards Upper. On his way, the player with the smoke should throw a smoke for Lower, blocking off any Counter-Terrorist vision of Ramp, before heading to Upper with a teammate. At Upper, he simply watches his team's flank whilst keeping his Molotov for denying the defuse, should the other team attempt to do so. The player accompanying him at Upper should rush out and drop down to behind the oil train. Once the bombsite has been cleared, the player with the bomb can simply plant the bomb and stay around White Train and the bombsite, whilst the other three players with armour should aim to be aggressive. They should be rushing down the lanes between the trains, looking to make the battles with the Counter-Terrorists as close range as possible.

On the anti-eco round, as a Terrorist side, you should begin by holding a simple default and waiting for the Counter-Terrorists to make a risky push using simple popflashes. This will most likely happen at Ivy or the T Halls, but could also happen in A Main. I would also recommend that you avoid Popdog, due to the extremely close range battles it offers both pistols and shotguns. As such, you should simply have two players head towards Ivy, with one player playing anti-flash, as well as one player holding A Main passively. The final two players should head towards the B Halls, but should initially hold around the top of Popdog. After thirty seconds has passed, the two duos should take basic control of their area of the map by clearing out B Halls and Ivy using their utility. Then you can simply use the B Execute shown down below to get the bomb planted. Once again, your players with SMGs should take similarly aggressive positions as they did in the pistol round, with rifles playing further back while offering support to the SMGs.

On the Terrorist side of Train, you are given lots of map control from the beginning of the round. However, you will still need to push to take full control of these areas, namely Popdog, T Halls and Ivy. In the early phases of your default, your team should be looking to take control of at least two of these areas, as well as allowing your AWPer to pick where he pleases with support. This first default is B centric with three players committing early to B, while your lurker and AWPer are left to play together or independently around A Main and Ivy. While two players walk to and group up around the top of the Popdog, the third player lines up the flashbang shown. This is then thrown, blinding any Counter-Terrorist AWPer peeking up Ramp or from Upper, allowing the two players to take T Halls control. This player is then free to carry on supporting the B players, or go and help the team's lurker or AWPer. Once the two players have taken T Halls control, they can perform the Popdog take shown in the video below.

Another flavour of default is more A centric, where one player heads towards B and plays passively around the top of Popdog. He can use his utility to try and push Counter-Terrorists off aggressive positions around B, such as the flash shown above. Two players head towards A Main and try to put pressure on aggressive Counter-Terrorists around Ebox and Popdog. They can even try to sneak out of A Main and down Olof if they are feeling confident. The final two players can head towards Ivy, initially waiting for a push. If nothing happens in the first few seconds, one player should run boost the second player to the other side of Ivy, where they can throw the utility shown below. One player can then aggressively push up Ivy with the support of the other. Another option once you have thrown this utility is that you could simply perform one of the executes shown below and have the Ivy player become the team's lurker for the round.

The first execute we will cover is towards the A bombsite and was first introduced by SK, but has become a standard amongst most professional teams. For this strategy to be successful, Popdog control must be obtained and having control of Ivy, T Halls or both is advised. Four players set-up towards A Main, with two lining up smokes outside; while inside A Main, one player plays anti flash, while the other watches for pushes. The final player waits above Popdog, he simply throws his smoke when asked to do so before going down Popdog and baiting his teammates to get kills in the side of the head. When the smokes bloom and the Sandwich Molotov has been thrown, the two players in A Main entry frag towards Outside with one on top of the trains and one rushing towards the smoke between the trains. On his support player's flash, he jumps through this smoke focusing on closing the distance on site, while the secondary entry fragger looks to follow him as closely as possible. The support player should look to "hold down the fort" in A Main and watch for flanks after throwing all his utility.

Another popular execute is a "Gob B"-style A execute, with three players rushing from Popdog and two players coming from main. This execute is far less common and is therefore more likely to catch off enemies and is best executed after running the B centric default or quickly at the beginning of the round. Due to the main brunt of the force coming from Popdog, it is very sudden and allows high skilled teams to really flex their fragging power. Towards A Main, your support player will smoke off Connector to slow Counter-Terrorist rotations before throwing a flash. This flash should explode at exactly the same time as your star player climbs the ladder of the nearest train to A Main. Meanwhile, your three other players should group up above Popdog before throwing their smokes one at a time. If this has been well drilled, both smokes should land at the same time. Then all three players should group up under Popdog. Off of the support player's flash and a simplistic underarm flash out of Popdog, these three players should simply rush the A site, looking to close the distance as fast as possible. I would recommend the two entry fraggers to run along the wall to their right, while the third player swings wide towards Ebox.

In Conclusion

Train is a fantastic map to be competent at playing as a team. Due to its execution heavy style, it heavily favours well-coordinated teams who have been playing together for a while. I personally have always used it as a map to beat mix teams on, as it just perfectly highlights how far a little organisation and teamwork can go on the Terrorist side. Therefore, we urge you to dry run these strategies several times in a server before you practice them in a scrim, just so everyone knows the timings and each other's roles in the strategy. As per usual, a YouTube playlist with all of the videos from above is shown below, please feel free to share this with teammates.

We hope you have enjoyed reading and learned from this week's map guide on Train and we hope to see you next week where we will be discussing Inferno for the final map guide.

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