"Fantasy WW2 setting " Topic

I am looking to shake up my D&D 3.5 campaign, rather than kill them and start over, which was considered. I am going to start a war. Here is my idea.

An ancient race has been awakened and they wish to return to dominance. Elf, Human, Dwarf , gnome are all just pink skinned invaders that need to be removed.

I would like to set this up as a sort of campaign within the campaign. Maybe play it out over a two ro three levels.

I see the basics like this: The enemy attacks swiftly and with out warning and before the world powers can react half the world is under enemy control and make it like WW2 Europe.

Now the war would be fought on a much grander scale than the characters would be involved in, but would be "drafted" to fight, maybe secret missions. Gather items of power, or other ways to help the cause. A sort of "Special Forces" unit.

Anyone ever done anything like this? Have ideas for missions, or problems to look out for?

Thanks in advance…

Michael

Any WWII movie where a small group of soldiers has to take on a larger force or sabotage something makes a great template. Like "Guns of Navaronne" for D&D.

Or the ancient race needs to gather certain artifacts to achieve their goal. A race to gather them first ensues. Of course, the artifacts are located in dungeons. With this model, I suggest a party of evil counterparts to the PC's from the ancient race. You can have them encounter each other from time to time until they get a big set-piece finish.

Two Hour Wargames Warrior Heroes has a great campaign system that you could use for to play out the marco portion of the war. The characters could run "quests" that would influence the big picture. These quests would be based off the special events that the campaign system generates automatically.

The bad guys are coming through a portal that can be closed if you gather these 6 parts from various dungeons. Standard computer RPG game stuff. All of Neverwinter is like that.

A counter force is a cool idea, you might even have your party clear out the dungeon just to get ambushed on the way out. Female double agent NPC with two way mirror letting the bad guys know every step.