It was a really fun event, and Philippe and all of the rest of the french players were really friendly and welcoming - especially in being kind enough to speak in English, which was great given how lamentable my ability to speak French is.
The event was really well run, everything went smoothly, and due to it being 4 games over 2 days it was overall a very relaxed couple of days, with plenty of time for everyone to finish their games.
I'd definitely recommend it for next year if anyone was considering making the trip to Lyon, and here's my thoughts on the various aspects of going:
Transport around Lyon was pretty easy - David and I were in a hotel in the city centre, but managed to get to the venue in about half an hour from there each day. Public transport is cheap, reliable, and pretty straightforward to navigate. Getting to Lyon you've got either trains or flights, we flew due to practicalities and timing, which worked fine, and there's a tram that gets you into the city centre in about half an hour at most. Trains go around the country, inlcuding Paris, so i'd be tempted to try Eurostar to Paris and then TGV down to Lyon on another occasion if i could book far enough in advance. It is quite a bit longer, but at least there's not the hanging around for hours in airports to contend with then
Overall the venue was good, lots of room and good lighting. It was a bit on the warm side, but not the end of the world. There were drinks and snacks available throughout, which was great
On the gaming itself, on core rules it's similar to E-UK/Net EA, but there are a few differences. First off as far as i'm aware you lose your cover save as defender in an assault if you move. Not sure if this is the same in EA, but in UK you still get it. The main other thing i encountered was deathwinds are a bit odd, in that the infantry could be placed 15cm away from the deathwind, and only the infantry were needing to contend with zones of control, allowing for the deathwind itself to go deep into your scout screens and hit a lot more stuff. Honestly i'm not 100% certain how this compares to the other two, as i don't tend to use them, but worth noting. Terrain plays the same as UK and EA though, and i didn't really hit any rules issues during play.
The trickiest part for me were the lists being in French, and translating them with Google Translate was a bit of a pain, so i stuck to a 'safe' core list where i knew the rules hadn't been changed much from the Original GW standard. The general list design was fine, there was a price hike on air assaults and a bit of a buff on a lot of ground tank units (such as a lot of tanks going from a 4+ save to a 5++ but that all seemed to work ok. There were a few lists i had reservations about on paper such as the AMTL (which can take multiple battle titans and still have a decent activation count) however none of them seemed to be doing particularly well, so it's quite possible my concerns were unfounded. The newer lists have some interesting options too, and would be good to try out i'd say if you can translate french a bit more confidently than i can
I would say that the kind of lists we're used to in the UK for armies like Marines and Eldar would be extremely effective at this kind of event, however it's worth noting players aren't trying to optimise lists and instead seem to be much more taking things they want to take because they think it would be fun and want to try it, so overall it's definitely not as competition driven as say the UK. What's nice about this is that it means you can also take fun stuff and still be competitive within the event, and get to try out things you'd never really be able to take at a UK event unless you were happy being battered for 3-5 games in a row. As such i would strongly urge strict DBAD protocols during list design, and kick loose and have some fun with it instead
In summary, a fun weekend and if you fancy a weekend gaming abroad at some point i'd definitely recommend giving it a go!