life can continue, while social distancing

[guest311]

one of my many year long hobbies has been wargaming in 20mm, and I have joined a loose group of fellow enthusiasts, a year or so ago, when the group I was then in became too controlling 

come on, it's supposed to be fun.

so most weekends some of us meet up and enjoy bloody combat on the tabletop, with no actual figures hurt, unless someone nicked the last jaffa cake afterwards 

the lockdown obviously put a stop to that, but last weekend we tried to fight another game, using mobile phones......

so the umpire actually moved units on a map, fought contacts by die throws, and relayed results to the players.
each player was allocated a 'side' and the mobile number of the member of the umpire's family who controlled their 'radio' net

two things became obvious very quickly ..
ex military dialed in, got through, passed message, got response, logged off 

younger / non-ex military dialed in, chatted away, finally passed message, got response, chatted some more then finally logged off 
or
dialed in, engaged tone, tried again, tried again, finally got through, passed message, got told unit had been wiped out 

did my 'side' win in the end 
did better comms have any effect 

did we enjoy our socially distanced game 

downside - you had to make your own coffee and eat your own jaffa cakes  :'(

no need to risk penalties for meeting other non family members, though GCHQ may have had a few heart attacks and there has been a van parked outside my house that I have never seen before, and we seem to have more helos flying over.

think I might need to put the bookcase against the front door at night 

[Intercity]

You could use something like Zoom as well, that way you are all logged on and visible in the split screen, I think it's supposed to be mainly for teleconferencing, but the application seems like it would work for your endeavors too.

[guest311]

many thanks for that.

mind you, the phones replicated quite well the problems of getting 'on net' when some ratchet jaw is already clogging it up with verbal diarrhea 

maybe an idea to try this weekend coming.

stay safe