[FEH] AR-O Chaos: I try out new Teams but it's Really Just the Echidna (and Idunn) Show: B3 S15

Decided to play/edit more matches to make up for last month's shorter vid.
I may also show matches with a unit lost here and there from now on,
because I don't want to compromise my favoritism style of play, but these new units/skills are giving me an ulcer.
"Charge Past Florina" will be continued in the comments section, cause I don't have enough text in this box lol
"TravantForce"
As much as I'd like to keep running Valter to have at least one team be as F2P as possible, he just doesn't have the ceiling necessary to handle the BST and skills of even the frailer Book 7 units. I may bring back/rotate ValterForce in if I feel like it in the future.
Another point is that, more and more Cav/Flier line archetypes of defense teams are including tanky supports to discourage raiders from playing more assertively; i.e. Hit and Run/Galeforce.
Some more recent popular picks include:
-Freyr for Resonance Shields and stopping L!Hinoka/Arion's Charge from being False Started
-B!F!Corrin for her Divine Vein to nerf AoEs, and all around great tanking ability.
With all this in mind, my thought process shifted from 'F2P availability' to 'At least continue to use units that I've already rolled for/invested in, instead of rolling for more of the new units (if I don't particularly like them).'
Travant - Valter's replacement, as another F2P lance flier but with latter Book BST and refine stonks.
He is naturally paired with Velouria for accelerated cooldown on his Galeforce. Thracia Kinglance doesn't come with Slaying or Fury like Valter's Prf does, but it does have a 'CD +1 per attack' effect.
In order to run Travant like Valter, this requires me to run Fury in both the A and seal slots, so I need extra cooldown externally.
this is where Elimine comes in - She takes over for Riev's Pulse duty by running Grandscratcher for the extra cooldown that Travant needs.
She's a flier so she can assist over a wider variety of terrain. Plus she can give her allies staying power through healing and DR via 'Holy Ground.'
At this point, I had to consider how I would handle the defensive supports that I mentioned earlier.
I ended up trading some initial maneuverability in Merlinus with Weapon Effectiveness, as the most cost friendly choice.
It would also be preferable if all the Galeforcers (save for Velouria) had Canto to retreat due to some circumstances requiring a sweep of all units except for B!F!Corrin.
I narrowed down my picks to: B!Eirika and G!Roy, as they also have slaying.
B!Eirika is more F2P friendly as a CYL unit; she has Cavalry and Armor effectiveness to beat Freyr and B!F!Corrin. But, I feel she is the weaker pick of the two for this role, since I have to swap her B skill to WoM here, thus giving up Canto; and in my case she doesn't have the right IVs/stats, so the only way I can work with her is during Book 5 bonus when she has inflated stats for the Grandscratcher check.
G!Roy has Dragon and Beast effectiveness, so he can also handle Medeus in certain situations. His Canto is built in to his weapon, so I don't sacrifice too much with WoM. His support ability is highly valued with 'Faith in Humanity' and the Harmonic Skill when you can press his button.
This last slot has to be a bonus unit who can Galeforce and Canto with WoM. The only way to do that while switching between different Book bonuses, is Florid Cane.
For greater consistency in Galeforce procs, all units would aim to have a precharged 2 CD in tandem with Travant's Prf/a Blade skill, and receive pulse from varying sources. Since I had to give Quickened Pulse to the Cavalry galeforcer, this meant that the bonus unit would have to be Infantry to receive pulse from Velouria as well as run
Time's Pulse themselves; which isn't the most cost effective, as loathe as I am to admit it. My Book 3 bonus pick is L!Roy as you can see; the FE6 Hall of Forms was a godsend.
Lastly Velouria, needs more HP than the bonus unit for pulse; which can be tricky outside of Book 3.
Still, I'm willing to bend over backwards for my teambuilding, cause I feel that the beauty of strategy and innovative play just gets lost in the powercreep sauce.
Notable Portraits:
Echidna and L!Roy by me (in Community tab)
Idunn
/ idunn_gba_portrait_rework
Mercedes
/ 1154485154036899841
0:00 Book 3 Info
0:06 Morning on the Battlefield - TearRing Saga
3:09 Cross Blood Battle - WotV: FFBE
5:49 Jack-a-Dandy - GGXrd SIGN
8:31 Penneloupe and Ezrels Theme - Vestaria Saga 2
12:29 Lady Kee'ra ~ Guardian of Khura'in - Ace Attorney 6
15:18 Battle for the Crystal Faith - WotV: FFBE
17:24 Bunny Bunny Carrot Carrot (remix by Simi and Chapchap) - Blue Archive
20:23 Clash on the Big Bridge (performed by The Black Mages) - Final Fantasy V
23:46 Starry Story - GGXrd SIGN
26:28 That Person's Name is - Bravely Default
28:50 YouSeeBIGGIRL/T:T - Attack on Titan
33:18 You're Winning! - Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Tag Force
36:55 Bonus Match

[@KinoSei]

This is a breakdown of one of my teams in the video; if you're interested, you can also read about the other in the description.
"Charge Past Florina"
A!Florina is to my knowledge, the only unit in the game that allows the entirety of her team to effectively ignore Gatekeeper and L!Myrrh's warp prevention, since she is the beacon that frees up her teammates B slots for Pass.
This notion sat in the back of my mind ever since I built my original FlorinaForce team.
I've never tried to make it a reality, because it would be a very niche team intent on countering rather niche units. Most of the time I run into them, they're not on a toxic defense archetype like the Cav/Flier line, so I could generally play around or just straight up delete them first.
So as you've probably guessed by now, I made this team with the intent of leveling the playing field against Cav/Flier lines with warp prevention. It's by no means perfect, but I enjoy teambuilding unconventionally and innovatively.
While I've started seeing the two warp blockers with a little more frequency as of late (no doubt thanks to L!Hinoka), it wasn't until Arion was released that I felt a functioning team could be built around A!Florina for this purpose. Technically L!Hinoka could also work, but she's gacha limited and I don't have her. The team is as follows:
Arion - Basically F2P L!Hinoka, providing Charge to flier allies, in my case A!Florina for greater initial maneuverability. He runs Spd/Res Gap as a way of buffing (primarily A!Florina) in case she needs to eat a ranged attack.
A!Florina - The Pass Beacon as I now like to call her. She softens up the enemy defense with double Savage Blow, and becomes a beacon with double action Fury 4, courtesy of a dancer. Runs Pass herself, in the event of an encounter with one of the Warp preventers.
L!Ninian - Since this team isn't traditionally Galeforce oriented (mostly cause of positioning issues caused by a ranged initiator), I needed a 3 movement dancer to keep up with Charge A!Florina and be able to give themselves another action. L!Ninian was a no brainer; I split her role between Heidr and Nils for Astra season due to the extra unit slot in normal AR.
Merlinus - I swapped him over from the old ValterForce team to help this one with some maneuverability as well as trap disarming thanks to his consistent Hex Trap ignoring HP. If needed, I built him offensively as well, so that he can hopefully take out a unit after A!Florina softened them up with multiple Savage Blows.
Bonus Gravity Staff user - As I mentioned earlier, this is not a traditional Galeforce or Hit and Run team, so positioning can get tricky. While there are some scenarios which allow for trapping in a ranged unit, there are times when the last backline/corner unit is melee; for example Freyr with 3 movement and False Start prevention for L!Hinoka/Arion on defense. The Gravity Staff is a F2P option that can stop said melee unit from reaching you if the staff user is able to attack a unit adjacent to the melee unit you want to keep alive for pot gathering.
Since there weren't any Book 3 Elibe healers, I went with my initial Three Houses route: The Blue Lions' Mercedes.
Technically B!Camilla was also an option for Book 3, but I want to run the Wrathful refine for greater damage output, and B!Camilla can't do that without forgoing Pass in the B slot or downgrading her Prf for Wrathful. Lastly, and most importantly, I don't actually have an active copy of her right now.
And there you have it, my two new teams that will probably be cycled out and not see much usage in the future because of how inconsistent and niche they are. I'm just glad that I actually managed to build the obscure teams I had in mind, and even secure wins with them lol.

[@ajch22]

Huge respect, you are actually making your favorites work through this unforgiving meta. I always aspire to that, but also, I am kinda lucky my favorites tend to be pretty busted.

[@KinoSei]

Chaos Season does give us more flexibility in 5 slots as opposed to 2/3 mythics out of 6 during normal AR.
Another factor would probably be the sunk cost fallacy (mindset); I invested in these older units, so I'm going to use them 😅.
Which are your favorites?

[@ajch22]

@@KinoSei my favorites are both Claude and Marianne. Wind Claude is possibly the best nuke in the game right now, and Brave Marianne is incredibly underrated imo.

[@monty_mole6255]

Man looking at these teams makes me feel super lazy about my team comps😂

[@KinoSei]

I'm built different 😤
AKA I'm extra 😜✨

[@zekmaster644]

This is incredibly well made, from the music choice to the team profile in gba style to the golden thumbnail lol. I can tell a lot of effort was put into this and I just wanted to say great job and keep it up!

[@KinoSei]

Thanks man! Chaos season is imo the perfect mode for a blend of creativity and strategy, and it's been able to restoke my passion for this game. Fortunately it runs monthly, so I have ample time to think and prepare for the next season; otherwise I might suffer from burnout trying to make new builds for different characters. I hope I can keep it up!

[@zekmaster644]

@@KinoSei nice, it's cool to see you enjoy doing this too, I know how the burn out feels. Quick question; do you make those cool gba portraits of characters, or is there a collection of fe characters with gba portraits out there somewhere?

[@KinoSei]

@@zekmaster644 I make some of the portraits in my vids, and post some of them in my channel's community tab; I source some others from different artists like BuskHusker, SpoonRhythm, and Olechandserif on Reddit, or randomly through Twitter's feed/a Google search.
I usually credit the art in the description of my videos, but only the new ones for that particular video, cause I don't want to inflate the description box with an ever increasing list of links; so if there are portraits in particular that you're interested in, but you don't see in my Community tab, you can drop a comment asking about them!

[@zekmaster644]

@@KinoSei Sweet! I've been looking into making GBA portraits but I never got around to it, this really inspired me to try and go ahead and get started on learning how. I really want to make one for Thórr

[@KinoSei]

@@zekmaster644 Best of luck to you! I'm not sure how much experience you have with art in general (not just pixel), so I'll leave some references here.
These two guide you through using pre-made/in game assets and simpler techniques such as splicing, so that you can make mix and match different body parts, which may be easier for beginners.
th-cam.com/video/qpHhFJ5JtzE/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/7BfW00d-FGY/w-d-xo.html
If you want to build your art/foundation from scratch however, these may be better in the long run for making custom portraits.
pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299
feuniverse.us/t/buskhuskers-gba-portraiting-tutorials/10927

[@pogo3593]

I'd feel so lucky to get a replay of my dweeb ass defense getting absolutely stomped by a team this cool

[@KinoSei]

Shucks, I'm flattered! Which of my teams did you like best?

[@pogo3593]

​​@@KinoSei Def the Brunnya/Echidna team. I just really like Brunnya.
The most satisfying thing about all your teams is by far is the creativity. I'm going to use that inf. hexblade/breath combo whenever I can from now on

[@KinoSei]

@@pogo3593 Respect to you for trying to elevate Brunnya gaming!
With FEH having over 1000 heroes now, I feel that it's a shame for us to over glorify the newest releases and selectively use the best units just cause a game mode is competitive.

[@tomasalvarado584]

How was the custom echidna portrait made? It looks amazing!

[@KinoSei]

Hey thanks! I usually make my custom/detailed portraits on a program called Aseprite.
I generally like to make them for characters from the GBA era simply so I have existing portraits to reference; since I can just extract portraits (game files) from the ROM.
Key thing to note about GBA style portraits (if you want to stay true to that era's artstyle) is that you have 16 colors to work with, hence 16-bit.
Usual starting point is with the outline of the character before adding in more colors, layers/details.

[@tomasalvarado584]

@@KinoSei Thank you so much!