First released to Mongolian basket-weaving fans in 2012, ChromeStrike is a rules-light* sci-fi RPG designed to cater to the niche of fast and deadly mecha combat. The central focus of the system is upon these mechs- 5-meter tall urban machines, although there is a healthy emphasis on mixed-vehicle fighting. Mechs fight alongside tanks and helicopters, APCs, heavy powered armor, and even aircraft. As you might expect, players can use any and all of these vehicles with proper training, but again, it’s not as much of a focus.

The setting is a thinly veiled nod to Armored Core and Chromehounds, and is set in the early 22nd century. International laws and treaties have broken down, with international peacekeeping organizations being abandoned entirely. With the breakdown in relations, many larger nations have absorbed smaller adjacent ones. The original mech companies, called Primes, have become rich and often independent from their patron states. It is within all this war and death that the mech jockeys, or mercenaries, have found their calling. Fairly run of the mill and basic. Others have come up with their own settings that I genuinely find more fascinating and amusing.

The system is D6 (occasionally D3). Most rolls for attacks and skills are roll above- these most frequently are compared to an enemy’s defense rating or stat. The simple combat is one of the chunks I am most proud of, although it does require frequent basic math and some memorization of various modifiers. Once initiative is out of the way, all that must be calculated are removed parts, decreasing attributes, and wound values. Large battles can be run without much trouble.

While I am preoccupied with full-time work, ChromeStrike is my favorite homebrew I’ve made, and I do intend on adapting it into a computer game and/or finishing the rulebook eventually.

Rulebook and Links

Main Rulebook (v0.9.90 – 10/29/2023)

Development Blog

1d4chan page

History of conversation on said Mongolian basket-weaving forum, should you wish to reminisce about better times and get drunk and cry

Recent Changes

• Reformatted the book; moved various chapters around
• The table of contents now has hyperlinks for the various chapters and sections
• Added a Quick Start Guide early in the book with a brief synopsis of character creation, mech creation, and basic game rules
• Added optional skill progression to Characters
• Characters are now encouraged to have a call-sign, or pilot alias, for when they are murdering things to death in their mech
• Fixed some inaccurate CR costs on the Very-Quick Reference page
• The Bionics section in characters has been renamed to Cybernetics and extended with consumables, more fluff, more cybernetic upgrades, and the addition of side-effect rules.
• A new prime has been added- the al-Najm al-Khafi! Cheapish spidertank mecha parts, high-end melee boosting parts, and additional stealth parts!
• The BEI-01 chassis now only has 3+ armor from the front and sides; Chinesium chassis now gets hit at 4+ from behind- the PLA never retreats
• The CO-02 chassis now also has +1 STR and 4+ armor on the chassis (others are still 5+); buffed from 5+ everything
• Reworded the bonus of the BEI-02 Arms; now grants +4 Missile Capacity instead of +100% (was still referring to the old missile rules). Did the same for the BEI-02 chassis.
• Added Cooling Tank to Shoulder Parts; partial stealth for campaigns and minor Missile DR boost
  Reworked (Shoulder) Missile Hardpoints. Now grant +2 Missile Capacity and allow an extra missile to be fired each turn. Missile meta?
• Missile Hardpoints are also no longer allowed to be purchased as built-in parts- was an oversight.
• Added Heavy Missile Hardpoints to the shoulder parts list, just in case you can’t get enough missiles. Grant +4 Missile Capacity, -1 SPD, and can be jettisoned once empty.
• Added Gyro Stabilizer to the shoulder parts list. Allows the use of a 2H weapon in that arm but can no longer Swap it out in combat.
• Added Hot Fibers (chassis) upgrade to part upgrades. Boosts mech Strength at the risk of damaging the arms when using melee attacks.
• Added Active Camouflage Cloak (chassis) upgrade to part upgrades. Does about what you would expect.
• Added Holster (chassis) upgrade to part upgrades. Does about what you would expect.
• Added Forearm Shield (arms) upgrade to part upgrades. Built-in melee weapon that doesn’t occupy a hand. Cheaper version of the EG Multitool.
• Moved Secondary Arm from Shoulder Parts to Upgrades and renamed it to Secondary Arms (Plural); is now a Chassis Upgrade
• Added Melee Override (head) upgrade to parts upgrade. More expensive, non-compatible head Software upgrade that also boosts Crit Chance in close-up combat.
• Increased Shredder shots to 12 (up from 7) and Assault Shotgun shots to 20 (up from 12)
• Added Explosive Sticks, Halberds, Explosive Halberds, and Plasma Cutters to the mech armory :DDDDD
• Clarified with Shotfists and Pile Drivers that their shots are not consumed on a missed attack
• Reworked Pile Drivers slightly; down to AP2, have a hit penalty, and shots increased to 4 (from 2)
• Light Rocket Pod decreased to AP0, Rocket Pod decreased to AP1
• Added info on how the Swap action works when holding two 1H weapons and swapping to a 2H one
• The melee maneuver now explicitly allows a player to attack with all equip melee weapons at once instead of punching or kicking
• Reworded the Ready Attack action very slightly
• Re-added in rules in the game about part hit locations, since I seemingly accidentally removed that entirely from the book somehow
• Added in a much more expanded section about how GMs can balance enemy encounters and devise missions for their players
• In the World of ChromeStrike, MechList now runs an ongoing list of top fifty mech jockeys. I swear I’d just change the base setting to that one from your homebrew campaign (yes, you, you know if you are you) if I could get away with it.
• Reworked character sheets in the book, also included Omar’s sheet near his companions for completion sake and minor OCD
• Finally added the long missing CT-02 “Shadowhawk”, CO-O2 “Onryō” and NRB-02 “Koschei” mechs to the appendix. Welcome aboard you three.
• Added an alternate Gunner loadout to the NRB-03 “Destroyer”- hideously minmaxed build for when you want a total party kill
• Added al-Najm 01, 02, and 03 mechs to the appendix
• Reordered the mechs in the appendix such that they are no longer randomly scattered around mixing the various corps models together
• Added MULEs to the appendix- autonomous robot assistants which carry weapons for mechs
  Rewrote the stat block for Tactical Nukes under Power Armor slightly
• Fixed the ‘spotting Stealth Power Armor’ Perception check in their entry; is now a 2d6 test instead of a 1d6 test
• Added another entry in Power Armor and Stealth Power Armor for using them in character-scale combat, in case that was missed earlier in the book in the character armory
• Transport Helicopter weight and carry capacity increased
• Land Transport modified- weight greatly increased, credits increased, given additional wounds
• My personal website page on ChromeStrike is no longer just placeholder lorem ipsum text, eat shit (affectionate)
• Removed the ‘ChromeStrike as a wargame’ bits as it’s an extreme tertirary interest and should be its own short, supplimental rulebook instead of book bloat
• Added some placeholder AI-generated artwork here and there in the book- will be removed later if/when published