My plan was to do the battle with Zoom using 2 fixed big picture cameras & Chris & I each having a smartphone in hand for close ups. With Zoom the remote players can be using a big screen PC & can choose betWeen a multiple window screen, or pick one to be full screen. I thought this would help the remote players keep a handle on it. But we met a big snag. We got audio feed back with the multiple devices in the wargames room. There is a mute button in Zoom, but it muted all the devices in the room, or none of them. We tried to turn off the mikes on the devices, but that didn't seem to work eithwer. So we abandoned Zoom & used two WhatsApp links one for each side.
The Brits are in the foreground. The dice decreed the wind was blowing towards the windows giving the Brits the weather guage. 
Both sides manouvred to get their squadrons into a single line of battle. 
The upwind advantage helped the Brits to cross the French T. 
In true age of sail style the two fleets sailed past each other in line ahead. The lead French ship got dis-masted & has fallen out of the line. 
The lead French ship has drifted thu the British line & struck her colours. 
The lead British ship was also pounded so badly it had to pull out of the line, but it was able to escape downwind as the next ships in the line wrapped around the tail of French fleet. 
The end ship in French line has had to strike its colours & the next one has been sunk by the converging British fire. Another British ship has has to pull out of the line with severe damage. 
Having lost 2 ships captured, one sunk & others with severe damage, the remaining French broke off the action. Since we last played it I came up with some ideas to fix a few remaining issues I wasn't entirely happy with in Men o' War. They worked really well. We still have technical issues to iron out with the video system - mainly to do with the sound rather than the video (the camera quality is really good). Using two WhatsApp links worked ok, but the remote players would really benefit from a bigger screen & more camera angles including a fixed point overall view. The players on the table would like to have a big screen at one end of the table with the moziac of all the remote players heads. These two items would make a much better connection between the players. We need to either find a way to get Zoom to do what we want, or find another App that will. The main problem with WhatsApp is that it doesn't provide video on a PC, so the remote players have at best a tablet sized pic. Can anyone point us to a better App for our purposes? Another problem is that the video sucks up the batteries - we have to remember to start with the devises fully charged.
Edit: I have found the way to disable the audio on smartphones & tablets, so maybe Zoom will work the way I want if all but one of the devices in the wargames room have their audio off.
Tonight's battle was American Civil War using Camp Cromwell Action Rules. Chris' Rebs v. Jim & Mark's Union. The Tasmanian C19 lock down rules allow me to have one visitor at a time for "social support" & as my wargames table is over 1.5m wide I can host one-on-one wargames. Tonight Mark participated by video link as we experimented with both WhatsApp on smart phones & Zoom on tablet & PC.
The objective is the village in the foreground. The Rebs have a column on the left hand road. A cavalry brigade leads 2 infantry brigades. The Union have a cavalry brigade on the near right & a column of 2 infantry brigades on the right hand road. 
The Union plan was to grab the village with the cavalry. After they got the 1st move & used it to rush their cavalry towards the village, the Rebs decided to try to win by breaking the Union army & started to deploy to their left. 
The Union cavalry are occupying the railway station & whorehouse with their horse guns deployed between them. Some of the Reb cavalry failed command & are being enfiladed by the Union guns. At this time we are using WhatsApp with my smartphone on a tripod to communicate with Mark. I have set it so Mark's feed is the small insert & the wargames scene is the full screen pic so I could see what I was showing him better. 
The infantry have deployed. One of the Reb cavalry units has been destroyed by the Union guns, another forced to retreat. 
The Reb infantry is moving up to attack, but the Union artillery is shooting well & making them pay. 
The Union are getting the best out of the firefight along the railway line. Their dismounted cavalry have been got out of the whorehouse & station & are advancing on the Reb's right flank. 
We are now trying Zoom on my tablet to Mark's PC. 
Both flanks of the Reb line are getting overlapped. 
The Rebs launched a last desperate charge at the Union centre. They broke the 2 units near the bridge, but their left has crumbled & they fail their Army Break Test. The Union hold the village & win both ways.The experiment of involving Mark by video link was promising. Both WhatsApp & Zoom worked fine. The main issue is maximising the involvement of the remote players. Next week we want to have remote players on both sides with them being the CIC's with Chris & I being mainly cameramen & plastic pushers. We think it will work best to have two separate links with two cameras - one for each side so they can have separate councils of war - by whispering, slipping into the other room, or maybe by showing each other notes on the video link. It is possible to have multiple remote players on both sides, but we haven't tested using multi-person conference calls yet. Our intention is to try 2 a side next week & work from there.
Because I live alone (Mitzi doesn't count in this regard), under the current regulations in Tasmania I am allowed to have one visitor in my apartment at a time as "social support" - provided we maintain 1.5m "social distance". As the wargames table is 1.8m wide, I take this as allowing me to have one-on-one wargames here - especially with Chris who I have spent 3 weeks sharing hotel rooms, cars & planes with on our India trip & who has also come thru 14 days isolation with no sign of C19.Its seemed appropriate that we blood the Landsknechts I painted while in isolation & fight in the 30 Years War - also a time of plague. My Musket Action rules have now been renamed Camp Cromwell Action as they have expanded to cover the same range of periods as Hail Whoever & a more general moniker was required.
Chris's Swedish army is on the right, my Imperialists on the left. The Swedes are all veterans, the Imperial troops are all regulars. The Imperial Pikemen & some of their cavalry are better armoured. 
The Swedes are advancing their pike & shot in the centre. The Empire is moving their dragoons & medium cavalry forward on their left. 
The Imperial dragoons have dismounted & entered the small wood while their cavalry move around the flank. Their pike & shot have advanced the meet the Swedish advance.
On the near flank the Zweihanders have advanced in front of the Imperial guns to meet advancing Swedish musketeers. In the centre musketeers are trading shots. On the far flank both sides are still manoeuvering for position. 
Suddenly all hell as broken loose right along the line. The musketeers have stopped the Zweihanders with accurate defensive fire. The Landsknecht pike & shot are doing well in the centre. The Swedish heavy cavalry have attacked to try & help out their infantry, but have failed to break through. 
The Imperial cavalry have out-manoeuvred the Swedes & got in a handy flank attack on the Swedish foot & the Swedish centre is getting flanked on both sides. 
The Swedish medium cavalry on the far flank have counterattacked & driven back the Imperial flanking force, but it's too little too late as the Empire is getting on top all along the rest of the line. 
Imperial musketeers have stormed the Swedish battery & most of the Swedish foot is now broken. The Swedes fail their army break test for a decisive Imperial victory.Camp Cromwell Action started out as rules for small actions in the French & Indian Wars. But they developed a life of their own as I put together the best bits of Bolt Action, Hail Whoever, my old Marathon to Mafeking rules that preceded them, plus a few recent brainwaves. There are still a couple of areas where I think they could get better still, & the odd loose end still pops up occasionally as we play it, but the result is a rattling good game, I think better than Hail Whoever which has been our game of choice for some years.
After my successful retreat from India I have now served my 14 day C19 home detention sentence.A wargamer is never short of things to do & the time has not been wasted. My Musket Action Rules have got a good going over, extending the range of periods so much that Musket Action is no longer an appropriate name & I have renamed them Camp Cromwell Action.
I had a bit of a backlog of boxes of figures. Finished so far: 2 boxes of British Light Dragoons - done with Tarleton helmets so good for AWI. 2 boxes of AWI infantry - painted half as British & half as French. 4 boxes of 30 Years War infantry - pikes, shot & 2 handed choppers. 1 box of Agema Carthaginian veterans. 
I tidied up my ordnance store, sorted out the 28mm figures on the shelves & done an inventory. I have about 7,000 28mm figs covering Ancients, Medieval, Renaissance, AWI, Napoleonic, Colonial & WWII, all accumulated in the last 9 years. There are also at least as many 15mm & 6mm figs accumulated previously, now mostly stored away in drawers or storage boxes & seldom used. And one 1/4th scale trebuchet. While my sentence for being out of the country has now been served, the rules have changed so it doesn't make a lot of difference. I can legally go out now, but only to get essential supplies or for exercise. First objective is the hobby shop - more paint are obviously essential supplies as I still have some figures to paint. Meetings of more than 2 people are forbidden - does this mean that one-on-one wargames with a 1.8m wide table providing social distancing are permitted? Maybe we can play wargames remotely using Zoom?