Frontier Conquest in Girls' Frontline 2

Frontier Conquest is the new seasonal Platoon campaign that arrived with Chiral Redundancy. It is a node-based strategy layer sitting on top of your existing Doll fights: factions, shared boss bars, expedition nodes, and Heavy Ordnance Corps (Armed Echelons) as off-map support. It is not Gunsmoke Frontline and it is not Inverse Cipher. Gunsmoke is the older weekly Platoon PvE scoreboard. Inverse Cipher is a five-stage puzzle with marionettes. Frontier Conquest is the month-long map.

Official copy opens the first Global window around 3 September 2026. Steam’s Chiral Redundancy notes list a Recruitment Period from 3 September 05:00 to 5 September 04:59 GMT+0, then Expedition, Rest, a second Expedition, Conquest, and Victory blocks through 19 September. IOP’s season table sometimes prints a 9 September “season start” for Global; trust the in-client timer. The parent index is the Guides Hub. Platoon unlock rules stay on Platoon and Gunsmoke.

You still play your own maps. Platoon is a guild layer, not a live fireteam. Frontier Conquest can be entered with limitations if you have no Platoon, but the faction pick, shared boss HP, and Armed Echelon track are built for a group that actually logs in.

How a round is structured

A full Frontier Conquest round is designed around 28 days. The first Global slice inside Chiral Redundancy is the opening campaign, with this published block structure:

Block	First Global window (GMT+0)	What you do
Recruitment	3 Sep 05:00 – 5 Sep 04:59	Platoon chooses a faction. Members can vote; the leader locks it.
Expedition	5 Sep 05:00 – 9 Sep 04:59	Node fights against regular enemies. Earn expedition experience.
Rest	9 Sep 05:00 – 10 Sep 04:59	Downtime. Faction can be changed.
Expedition	10 Sep 05:00 – 14 Sep 04:59	Second node stretch.
Conquest	14 Sep 05:00 – 17 Sep 04:59	Platoon plays the boss. Shared HP pool.
Victory	17 Sep 05:00 – 19 Sep 04:59	Rewards and downtime before the next round.

That calendar overlaps Part 1’s 16 September banner close and Part 2’s 17 September Soppo open. Do not skip Recruitment because you are still farming OTs-14. The faction you lock decides which Armed Echelon this round can award.

Official Frontier Conquest operation guide

Factions and why the pick matters

Season 1’s three factions (Turul decontamination theme):

• Underground Broker Association (Poludnitsa) — Armed Echelon Fabric, a 60 mm mortar. Expedition support leans on Exploration points.
• Great Wall Railway Outpost Garrison (Captain Ussery) — Armed Echelon Limonad, a 105 mm rocket. Surveying points.
• Mokosh (Vasily) — Armed Echelon Porcelain, a 35 mm automatic grenade launcher. Mining / excavation points.

A Platoon aligns with one faction per round. Community notes from the broadcast: it takes three seasons to collect all three Heavy Ordnance Corps units if you never repeat a faction. Pick the HOC your group actually wants, not the artwork. Later seasons add Spectrum, Falconer, and Interrupter as new Armed Echelons; you will not own those on day one of Global Season 1.

Heavy Ordnance Corps (Armed Echelons)

Heavy Ordnance Corps is the other new content line in the same patch. In Exilium they appear as Armed Echelons: off-map support batteries you earn through Frontier Conquest and related rewards, then upgrade. Think GFL1 HOC fire support, not a sixth Doll in the deployment list. They bombard a peripheral or core battlefield with Physical damage, markers, or delayed protocols. Each Echelon has a skill that can be upgraded (ten steps on the wiki tables).

Examples from Season 1 kits:

• Limonad — Rocket Mania: single-target Physical hit that prefers the core battlefield once peripherals are clear.
• Fabric — Focused Bombardment: tile AoE around a chosen point.
• Porcelain — Grenade Barrage: smaller-radius AoE on a target.

You earn the Echelon for free by playing the mode. You do not pull it from Targeted Procurement. Upgrade materials come from the campaign, not from Combat Reports meant for Dolls. Keep Doll stamina on farming and resources. Treat HOC leveling as a Frontier sink.

Armed Echelons also feed later modes (Liminal Iteration Season 2 is scheduled to incorporate them). Raising the one you unlocked this round is enough. Do not sit out Frontier because you wanted a different mortar.

How it differs from Gunsmoke and Inverse Cipher

Gunsmoke Frontline is still the weekly Platoon PvE: two Battle Participation Opportunities per day, Outpost maps, Decisive bosses at Commander 60. Frontier Conquest does not replace those entries. You still run Patrol and Gunsmoke on the daily checklist. Frontier is the longer board with faction choice and HOC unlocks.

Inverse Cipher is a personal puzzle with borrowed marionettes and a turn cap. Frontier uses your echelons plus Armed Echelon support on a strategy map. If a stage feels like a one-turn assassination script, you opened the wrong event.

Combat inside the nodes still uses cover, Stability, flanking, and Tile Transformation. Staff a Phase core from team comps. Bring the weakness the node lists. A pretty OTs-14 screenshot will not fix a facing error; combat and tiles will.

How to spend the first week

1. Be in a Platoon (Commander 20). Founding one still costs Collapse Pieces; joining does not.
2. During Recruitment, vote, then accept the leader’s faction. Do not start a private round to “try Fabric” if your group already locked Mokosh.
3. During Expedition, clear the nodes you can full-clear. Shared tasks and the boss bar need participation more than a single hero run.
4. Spend Intelligence Puzzles on event shop Permissions first, then conductors. Frontier is not a reason to empty the stamina bar into Combat Reports for a bench Doll.
5. During Conquest, show up for the boss window. Shared HP does not wait for your Sunday.
6. Claim the Armed Echelon and start its first upgrades. Then go back to Gunsmoke and story.

Frontier Conquest is the patch’s new Platoon campaign, not a weekend raid and not a puzzle. Open it on 3 September, lock a faction, earn the Heavy Ordnance Corps unit, and keep Gunsmoke on the same checklist. The commanders who treat it as optional leave a free support battery on the table; the commanders who treat it as the only mode miss Path of the Exile and Inverse Cipher. Play the round. Do not live there.