Operation Vanguard was CS:GO's fifth operation, running from November 11, 2014 to March 31, 2015. It replaced Breakout's random mission drops with campaigns, chains of missions you could plan in advance, and it was the only operation to sell extra campaigns on top of the pass. It also brought a rebuilt Train into the game and a community-made case led by the AK-47 | Wasteland Rebel. The operations overview has the wider series.
Dates and price
Vanguard launched on November 11, 2014. Valve's release notes said it would run until February 10, 2015. It was then extended by about seven weeks, as GosuGamers reported, and Valve's update of March 31, 2015 marked its close.
GosuGamers and Overmental both reported the pass at $5.99, with the two optional campaigns at $2.99 each.
Maps: six community maps, then Train
Like Breakout, Vanguard made its maps free. Six community maps went into the Operation Vanguard map group for all players: Marquis, Facade, Season and Bazaar for bomb defusal, and Workout and Backalley for hostage rescue.
The seventh arrived a month later. On December 10, 2014, Valve "reintroduced Train" and added it to the Vanguard map group, free for everyone. HLTV called it a complete revamp of the map, and noted that Train had been missing from most tournament map lists since Cobblestone and Overpass were added.
The same launch update overhauled Arms Race with new rules and three maps that had been limited to Demolition, and added a new Demolition map.
What the pass included
According to Valve's release notes, the Operation Vanguard Pass gave you:
- A personal Operation Vanguard Journal.
- Exclusive access to the Operation Vanguard Weapon Case as a separate timed drop.
- Two campaigns, Vanguard and Weapons Specialist.
- Access to two optional campaigns, Maghreb and Eurasia, sold separately.
- An Operation Vanguard Challenge Coin, upgraded by completing branches of a campaign.
- Active Duty and Vanguard scorecards plus friends leaderboards for competitive matchmaking.
How campaigns worked
A campaign was a map of missions laid out from the start. Each one had branching paths, and finishing a mission opened the next one along that path, so you could choose which route to follow. Overmental described it as "way, way different" from earlier operations, which had dropped missions at random.
Missions arrived on a fixed schedule. Valve said the pass let you complete two missions per week across its two campaigns; the Counter-Strike Wiki puts it as one new mission every four days, and each extra campaign added another on the same timer. Because the schedule ran from launch, a late buyer started with a backlog to catch up on.
| Campaign | How you got it | Missions |
|---|---|---|
| Vanguard | Included with the pass | 21 |
| Weapons Specialist | Included with the pass | 21 |
| Maghreb | Extra purchase, $2.99 | 21 |
| Eurasia Theater | Extra purchase, $2.99 | 21 |
Each completed mission paid out an Operation Vanguard Case or a weapon from an existing collection. Reaching the end of a branch earned Challenge Stars, which upgraded the coin: according to the Counter-Strike Wiki, silver at 3 stars and gold at 4. The wiki adds that the extension to the end of March made it possible to finish all 84 missions across the four campaigns.
The Operation Vanguard Weapon Case
The case holds 14 community-created finishes. During the operation, coin holders received it as an extra timed drop and, as the Counter-Strike Wiki notes, as a possible mission reward too.
| Grade | Finishes |
|---|---|
| Covert | AK-47 Wasteland Rebel, P2000 Fire Elemental |
| Classified | P250 Cartel, SCAR-20 Cardiac, XM1014 Tranquility |
| Restricted | Glock-18 Grinder, M4A1-S Basilisk, M4A4 Griffin, Sawed-Off Highwayman |
| Mil-Spec | Five-SeveN Urban Hazard, G3SG1 Murky, MAG-7 Firestarter, MP9 Dart, UMP-45 Delusion |
The rare special items are the original five knives (Bayonet, Flip, Gut, Karambit and M9 Bayonet) in the Arms Deal finishes, so Vanguard added no new knife.
A couple of details from the Counter-Strike Wiki are worth knowing. The AK-47 | Wasteland Rebel hides the bomb code 7355608 and a stylised "1337 Krew", a nod to the Elite Crew. The M4A4 | Griffin's artwork was changed in a December 18, 2014 update over a copyright problem, but unlike the M4A4 | Howl it kept its place and rarity in the case. The Howl story explains what happened to the Howl instead.
What Vanguard changed
Train in Active Duty. The rebuilt Train spent its first months in the Vanguard map group. On the day the operation closed, Valve added Train to the Active Duty pool and moved Nuke to the reserves. Train was rebuilt once more for CS2 in 2024, as covered in Train returns to CS2.
Campaigns as the standard. Operation Bloodhound kept campaigns and wrapped them in a story, with missions paying XP instead of items. Wildfire and Hydra followed the same broad approach.
Paid extra campaigns did not return. The wiki's operations table lists pay-per-campaign content only for Vanguard. Later operations put every campaign in the pass.
The case pattern held. Vanguard's case followed Breakout's: community designs, the pass as the way to receive it during the event, and the original five knives as rare items. The weapon case history shows where it fits among the cases of that period.
Sources
- Release Notes for 11/11/2014 — Counter-Strike blog
- Operation Vanguard — Counter-Strike blog
- Vanguard comes to a close — Counter-Strike blog
- CZ nerfed, train revamped in update — HLTV.org
- Operation Vanguard scheduled to end today — GosuGamers
- CS:GO's Operation Vanguard: Campaigns and Missions Explained — Overmental
- Operation Vanguard — Counter-Strike Wiki
- Operation Vanguard Weapon Case — Counter-Strike Wiki
