The most important rounds of any match are hands down the first three rounds. If you win pistol round you are in great shape, and if you lose it, but manage to pick up one of the next two rounds, you are manipulating the money very well early in the game.

This article is going to take you through each of the first three rounds on the offensive side of the map with my personal opinion on how tactics should be made in order to put your team in the best position possible early on in the game.

Pistol Round

First off lets start off with the great money perk that came along in 1.6 for the game. Terrorist now have the opportunity to get an extra $800 for planting the bomb if the defense defuses it. So now by playing a little more aggressive and smart, you can get extra cash for losing a round. *NOTE* If you save out and don’t die, this will mess your money up, so I don’t suggest it, especially on a pistol round.

There are two ways to look at the pistol round. It is either to do the best tactic that you think you can win with, or form a tactic that will best get the bomb plant down. I am not saying make a 4-1 split tactic that will more than likely make you lose the round because the one player is off lurking with the bomb. I am saying your best bet is to figure out a tactic that will trick the defense and still get you a bomb plant, so no matter the out-come, you can have extra cash.

I have two personal picks for tactics. The first is a sandwich tactic. This means that you have a group of three and a group of two hitting the bombsite from two different sides. If timed correctly, you can catch the defense off guard with the two players who can catch them looking the wrong direction. This is usually a better fit for the B bombsite, since there are usually only two players playing it.

Here’s an example on de_inferno

-Four players buy armor with glocks. One player buys a USP/flash bang combo.
-The three best spawns should have armor, and the last two should have one armor and one with the USP/flash bang.
-The first three players are going to rush straight up the middle and hit the left side hard. There is almost always only one player playing this spot and you will get a nice three versus one situation and you will have armor while he has nades and a kit.



-After this you need to head straight into the counter-terrorist spawn. This tactic won’t work if you hang back and try fighting the other two A players.



-Meanwhile the other two players are holding the banana very defensively, and when I say very defensively, I mean so the defense will not know you are there.



-The three players going through spawn attack the B bombsite. Once they confirm that the B players have seen them, the two players at banana will go to the site as well and flash over the wall.



The idea of this tactic is that the A players will think you are either holding or everyone is hitting spawn to go B. If you do the tactic fast enough, it will work. The two A players also realize that you know that they know you are hitting B, so there is a chance you are still holding the spawn side of the A bombsite and might shoot them trying to flank and there may be someone in the hallways to shoot them in the back.

The two B players will focus all their attention on spawn. Once a team sees more than two players, they usually guess that they may have missed the other ones, so they will assume all five are there. The two banana players are flashing, because the B players probably fell into the site behind boxes, for maximum coverage and delay against the offense.