To work out where the two teams will meet, we first have to look at the spawn positions.
Terrorists can spawn from any of these points. There tends to be more variance between the
best and worst locations for T's than with CTs. In this case, this spawn is the best
and this poor soul will be the last one everywhere. This is what the spawns look like in-game.
Let's go to CT spawn. And I know what you're thinking. Why on Earth are there 2 cubemaps
right next to each other?! It's ridiculous! Valve pls fix. But also, despite all of these
spawns, only these 5 are used in competitive play. The rest are reserved for casual. Because
of this I've made the difficult decision to review train on these 5 spawns since you probably
only care about competitive if you bother watching these deep anal videos.
It's easy to see that this spawn is the best for the 2 main entrances, and this is the
best for the back of B. And here's what it looks like to start in
these 2 spawns. This overview shows where the best possible
spawns from both teams will meet. Of course, in a lot of these situations it's better for
CTs to lurk further back but you should always be prepared for a surprise rush at these locations.
Firstly, the meeting at Ivy which now finally has IVY again! Both teams meet within 5 seconds
of the round starting and it's the CTs who clear the corner first. Both teams have the
opportunity to bounce grenades off walls to gain an advantage, though I suspect the CT's
have a better angle since they can more easily flash behind themselves as they rush out.
The next chokepoint is a little more complicated. If terrorists exit T main then they will have
to be on the look out for enemies both at the site and at Tunnel 1. This shows the importance
of pre-smoking locations and I suspect this route will be used for more coordinated delayed
rushes as a result. Bombsite A is almost frighteningly open in this new version but at least there
aren't as many places that CTs could be hiding. Should terrorists rush the other side of the
train, they have a nice bit of cover here which is useful since they won't be able to
reach the end of the chokepoint before enemy snipers turn this corner.
Popdog- and yes, that's the official name, was a difficult one for me, mainly because
it includes my only weakness- ladders. The best result both Welshe and myself achieved
was this, where terrorists are able to reach the ground just before CTs turn the corner.
As you can see from my Terrorist run, I didn't quite manage to hit the ground in time. In
practice as Terrorists you'll have to have a good, clean run to get the upper hand in
this lower area, or have somebody covering the CT entrance from T main to prevent pesky
CT rushes in this area. If CTs choose to rush B platform then they
can turn the corner just before Terrorists do, though I personally wouldn't want to run
the risk of meeting 5 terrorists here. Once again as CT you can bounce a flash off the
wall so that it detonates behind you, blinding anybody looking your way. But be careful,
since the shape of the wall makes it difficult. As Terrorists you have plenty of choices-
you can do a delayed rush, head around the back of the area or even lurk at the top to
try and catch rushers off-guard. And finally, 'long B' which I'm going to call
that because it's so out of the way. This is the only rush shown that starts at this
particular CT spawn. This starting position is useless for any other rushes on train.
CT's have to either climb up a ladder or hop up onto the reels here, both of which are
fiddly and will impede the rush time. CT's turn the corner first and must prepare for
a lot of different places that terrorists could be hiding. But I'm not going to pretend
to be an expert on this. I can provide the times and footage, it's up to you to put it
to best use. In the last video I tried showing what sort
of a difference a bad spawn makes when compared with a good one. Interestingly, the variation
between the best and worst spawns for both teams is about 280 units, or 1.1 seconds.
This means that in competitive play, if you get the best spawn possible then you're at
BEST 1.1 seconds ahead of the other team when performing these rushes. Just imagine that
the slowest person is this far behind the best and you're about there.
I hope this will help you to plan your attack on train. Have fun!