A few weeks ago, before Hyperspace Season 1 kicked off, I got a message on Facebook from Matthieu Carbon asking me if I fancied heading over to France to play in their local Hyperspace Trial. I looked at my Facebook calendar, the tool I use to steer my life through the world of X-Wing events, and there was nothing else going on so I thought “why the hell not?” I booked a Friday off work and sorted a train. Matthieu kindly offered me a place to sleep so I didn’t have to worry about that.

The hardest decision was what to fly. Last weekend it was all about Kylo, this weekend I felt it needed to be all about Guri (shocking I know). Her and Fenn have given me my best ever swiss performance, going 6-0 in cardiff with them, and I think that Guri suits how I play more than Kylo does. You’ve all put up with Kara “Starbuck” Thrace for a while now… but having watched the incredible Avengers Endgame there’s a new female pilot in the world who is going to muscle in on Katee Sackoff’s monopoly for a while, and she’s… well a little more super.





All I can say is I am very glad I went. Sometimes you take a chance on things, you say yes when it’s not necessarily the obvious answer and it works out. I met Matthieu and his highly entertaining friend Francois Castro at Lille Station and we went for food, then went for drinks and had a great evening. Matthieu offered me a place to sleep for the weekend, so I stayed with him and his lovely family in their beautiful house, I have serious home envy off that.

The event was relatively small compared to the busier UK Scene, with only 24 players, but as is so often the case bigger does not always equate to best. A great atmosphere, and some excellent games of X-Wing were enjoyed. It was great to catch up with some familiar faces I’ve been lucky enough to meet in my travels to France before, the likes of Seb Sanchez and Nicolas Durand.

I didn’t take any photo’s during the games on day one, the 5 rounds of swiss, I’m learning its a distraction as thinking about when to take a photos is often when I should be looking at a dial… but 5 great games awaited me. Every opponent was welcoming, sporting, and did their absolute best to make sure that my somewhat inadequate French had no negative impact on the game.

Three of the games were recorded and will be uploaded to the (hosts of the event) Northern Rebel Squadron Youtube channel in the next few days hopefully so I’ll share links to those when I have them. But until then you’ll have to make do with my somewhat patch memory!

Round one was against the Kilt wearing Daniel Avril, running the now familiar Rebel Beef. It’s a hard match up. Wedge is generally horrible to both my ships if he gets the chance, but I was able to start the day with a win that went to time! 127-37. It’s always good to get that first win under your belt, but more relieved when I heard Daniel’s somewhat impressive record at some big X-Wing tournaments!

My second match was against Xavier Carlier running a Vader miniswarm. I played against James Dowdall in Cardiff a few weeks ago running a very similar list. I got through that one by the skin of my teeth, Vader is a monster and you don’t want him shooting first with that ATC Crit coming at Fenn, and he has to drop before he starts ripping Guri apart. With no Howlrunner though I was less intimidated by the Swarm element of it. The presence of an Interceptor was great to see, those ships are really good blockers and I have a real soft sot for them from 1st Edition (Please can we have Carnor back?) I got the trade I wanted, Vader for Fenn, and then it’s over to Guri to start killing things. 200-74 win.

I’m quite familiar with the list Gabriel Siou was running. Imperial 5s is something I’ve come across playing against Dale Cromwell at Warboar, and it’s a good list. The focus of the list is Marek, and he is supported by a whole bunch of ships designed to help push through those painful crits. It only takes one bad spot for a ship to go from healthy to absolutely on fire/dead, fortunately Fenn was able to make a big dent before he departed, taking out Duchess and the shields on Marek and then she turned it on. 3 turns triggering a range one outmanoeuvre shot… killing a tie each shot, full on beast mode. A hurting Marek against an angry Guri only really ends one way and I got the win. 200-74.

Game four against Romain was more Rebel beef, this time using Arvel over an second X or Y meant that Wedge had Proton Torps. Really not what I want to see, Wedge with those basically equals a dead Fenn or more worryingly an in trouble Guri. To make it extra fiddly Fenn naturally pulled an Damaged Engine early on. I took the chance that my opponent was going to trigger Leia on a certain turn. Get it right I’m in a good spot, get it wrong and I may as well concede. I got it right, only to be let down by Fenn (shocking right….) but it was ok, the following turn I was able to get rid of Wedge, leaving Guri to handle Cassian, an A-Wing and a Y-Wing. 200-126 win, and a 2 health Star Viper was enough to guarantee me dice and a spot in the cut.

Round 5 was against a fellow traveller, Nick Verbiest from Belgium, Darth Maul and some munition totting drones. Whilst these new ships are funky and I still have no real idea how it all works (“he does what?” came out of my lips a couple of times) Fenn was his usual menacing self and Guri started in on the Drones, until I realised that killing drones made Grevious work, with Fenn dead and that Sith Inflitrator looking far to healthy it took a while, but she does like low health ships and low agility ones too, and by the time we got to the end of the game I think Nick was glad he didn’t have to chase Guri anymore and I was happy to top swiss with another 200-74 win. I’m still unconvinced by the Seperatists as a faction. They have some cool toys and abilities but seem immensely fragile at the same time. Still Nick took them to 4-1 and other people have had some strong runs with them so maybe there is something there.

Another relaxed evening in France before the cut on Sunday. I had been due to play Loic Bollati, who was running Saw and 3 Ys, but a drop elevated my friend and former French National Champion, Nicolas Durand to 8th place. Nicolas was running double resistance bombers and honestly I had no idea how to approach the match up with my list. Massive firing arcs, inbuilt passive mods, board control with bombs and he just kept shooting at me! Even when Fenn and Guri put 9 damage into Cat in a turn it wasn’t enough and after a few short minutes Nicolas had two half pointed Star Fortresses and I had a place in the side event booked. So the dream of another Hyperspace win gets put on hold for a bit.

In the side event I had a round one bye thanks to being in the cut, but won my second and third games, against fellow top 8 players Pierre Buffiere and Loic Bollanti, topping the event and winning myself an Aethersprite… maybe I should give Supernatural Anakin a run out sometime?

Fenn pulled off the last ditch Talon Roll. Anakin was not a fan.

I can’t praise the hospitality of Matthieu and the rest of the players enough, they were just fantastic hosts, generous, considerate and passionate about the game. I’ve always enjoyed X-Wing in France and this weekend has just solidified my excitement to come to the French Open in a few months. It’s going to be a superb weekend.

Next Saturday is another Hyperspace Trial, possible my last of season one. Guri Fenn is now 11-0 in HST Swiss which can’t be anything other than overjoyed about. As much as it’s great fun putting Super Kylo and other ships on the table. There’s just something about that ship. She’s just… Marvellous… (I’ll get my coat now). It is also the EPIC UK Team Championships on Sunday, and I’m so excited to be teaming up with Dale Cromwell and Martyn Chivers for what is no doubt going to be one of the absolute highlights of the X-Wing Calendar. Here’s looking forward to two more great days of X-Wing.

Next time: READ ^THIS^ PARAGRAPH….

If you’re looking for X-Wing events then head over to the 186th Tournament Calendar.