[MessiaH]

4.0 Advanced Strategies and Calling for Captains
So now you have called some wars for your team, becoming confident and have the ability to notice patterns in play. You win some; you lose some, but all the while gaining experience. You are beginning to thirst for the finer detail of strategies and how to call them. Let’s explore some.

4.1 Advanced Terrorist Strategy

Now that you have the basics down of how the terrorist side should be played, we can go into the specifics of how the three basic strategy templates can be manipulated into more technical strategies.

4.1.1 The Flank Strategy
Simple in theory, not so simple to employ is the Flank strategy. It is a hybrid of a hard rush and a slow push as members of your team will be doing different things. This is where you have four of your team attack one bombsite from two positions with the bomb drawing the defenders to rotate to this bombsite while the remaining member hangs back and waits. Winning the round lies on the shoulders of the flanker as pushing too early will result in them being spotted as the defenders may not have rotated yet, or pushing too late will result in the defenders retaking and defusing before the flanker has time to reach them.

The easiest way to call the flank strategy is to call for a split attack on a bombsite having two of each of your team mates attacking an area while you yourself play the flank at the furthest most point on the map. When your team is attacking the area you slow push the other bombsite coming from behind. You want to be doing this only after you can confirm that the defenders have spotted your team with the bomb at the other site otherwise they may not rotate.
Once the bomb has been planted the flanker can practically all out run up behind the opposition as at this stage the opposition will be running to retake themselves and not notice the extra set of footsteps due to all the noise.

Successful execution of this strategy would be losing one or two members taking the bombsite while taking out and equal number of defenders (depending on which bombsite it is) and getting the bomb down so the flanker clean up the rotating opposition. To help the flanker do his job properly, calling numbers of defenders and calling their deaths is vital.

The benefit of this strategy is that you are not putting all your eggs in one basket. Basically your best player should be made to play flank. Even if your initial attack gets shut down, if you have managed to get 3 or 4 kills, the flanker with the element of surprise, coming from a behind, and being your best player, chances are he will win the round.

MessiaH’s Strat Tip: If you are playing flanker and you have come up behind the enemy, do not shoot them if they have not seen you. Hold your fire until you are at extremely close range then kill them all together quickly. This is better than giving away your position by killing one from long range allowing the opposition to react and possibly kill you.

4.1.2 Fakes
Fakes are quite important to any terrorist side game. If you directly attack a bombsite every round without throwing in a fake every now and again, the defence will become privy to your play style and rotate earlier when a site is under assault. You can expect to be met with a flurry of grenades, flashes and spam fire which will thwart your attack. Nine times out of ten if you do an all out assault on a bombsite when the opposition still has their grenades your attack will be shut down so a good use of fakes is to draw grenades from the defence. This will also leave the opposition without grenades to retake once you have faked their site and assaulted the other. Another way to go about it is to double fake, drawing grenades from the site you intend to assault, faking the other, and then going back to the first site.

When calling a fake, make sure everyone on your team knows the true destination for the bomb. In addition, call an exact time on the countdown clock for everyone to regroup after the fake and assault the other site. This will ensure there are no stragglers and keep everything in line.

Standard fakes are easy to pull off because the entire team can run to one site, throw a flurry of smokes and flashes, then run together to the other site. Double fakes require a certain level of precision and timing.

When calling a double fake, call for three of your team to hold the choke point of the site you intend to assault with the bomb. The other two will go to the other site. Call for a fake at the first site (the true destination) and have them send a few flashes and smokes. Now, the other two at the other site will fake that one twenty seconds later (depending on rotate times of the map, extend this delay if the distance between bombsites is greater than normal eg. Season). The team of two will use all of their grenades smokes and flashes to draw as many defenders back to this site as possible. The team of two will now join the rest of the players at the first bombsite as they are flashing in to take it.

If correctly executed, you should be able to draw four defenders to the other bombsite making it easy pickings for the first team of terrorists.

MessiaH’s Strat Tip: Leave the second fake as late as possible in the round. The opposition will think that this fake must be where you intend to attack as it wouldn’t be possible for you to go back to the other bombsite.

4.1.3 The 2-1-2 Slow Push
The 2-1-2 is the bread and butter of counter-strike strategy. It is generally a mirror of your oppositions defence set up and pits your players against theirs. Terrain and positioning set aside, whoever has the quickest & sharpest aim will win.

This strategy is very player friendly because it is simple; however you still have a lot of work to do as a captain. At the start, make sure your players know which site you intend to assault and at what time on the counter. The purpose of this strategy is to develop a presence on all parts of the map meaning that the defence cannot rotate and must hold their set-up because at this point, they do not know where you intend to attack. Smokes are your friend for this kind of strategy. You want to block the view of your opponents so that at a time designated by the captain, 2 of your team can rotate to join the 1 in mid and split one bombsite together without being spotted.

To call this strategy, simply say 2-1-2, and call who should be holding which position. When your team gets better, you can play a 2-1-2 and have whoever has the closest spawn play that position. At the time of your assault, flash all areas together. This will no doubt cause confusion as most of the defence will call “flash in x area”. A quick rotate should see a team of 5 taking a position defended by two.

Getting in quick and as a group is the key to this strategy as the defence will still have their grenades and retakes will be harder to defend against.

MessiaH’s Strat Tip: This strategy can be turned into a Flank strategy on some maps such as de_dust2. Play the 2-1-2, but at the time of the A split, only have 2 short and 2 long leaving one in lower dark to catch rotates.