Okay. So I was thinking/sleeping and I came up with a counter. Instead of playing the entire army we play a single squad that interacts with canon characters (and may even have some in it). We'd reference the big events that we're not apart of, such as campaigns in other parts of the content. One such way w would be through these physical military grapevine. The other is through unofficial gossip. 

The only way I thought of to play such a large army would be to go the NRP approach.