Mass Combat advice

[SonorousDin]

I'm soon to start a campaign adapting the plot of the 2005 Liquid Entertainment game D&D: Dragonshard into a tabletop 3.5e two-party adventure, with one lizardfolk and one human party.

Since the entirety of the campaign is going to revolve around the war for the Heart of Siberys with some player vs player conflict, I want a meaningful mass combat system that can account for the input of PC abilities and make the players feel as though their decisions and characters have mechanical value in how the battles are resolved, rather than an arbitrary DM handwave deciding it - which would be suitable for most campaigns, but not this one.

I did some google research and Fields of Blood's system seems to have the most recommendations. Would you guys concur? Do you think there is a better alternative? Let me know.

[Umbranar]

Heroes of Battle introduces the Victory Point system.
Basicly you plan forehand what the outcome is of a battle should the players not interact.
Then you decide how many "Victory Points" the party needs to earn by completing objectives (missions) in order to sway the battle.
Then you write up objectives they need to complete and/or encounters they need to win and how many victory points they earn on success or lose on failure.
When all the encounters (or a certain amount of time) are done you calculate the victory points and see what happens.
Of course you can set multiple "goals".

Example: 100 vp is minor victory, many losses on both side, 150 vp is good result: less losses in ally side, 200 vp is total victory etc...

The idea is: think big but act small.