Cloudspire Review: Can This Hex-Based Tabletop TD Knock It Out of the Park?

Cloudspire from Chip Theory Games takes the “tower defense” idea off the screen and onto the table—letting players upgrade units, push across a hex-based battlefield, and storm rival fortresses. The big question: does this expensive tabletop strategy game deliver?

Cloudspire review: tabletop tower defense or just a board game in disguise?

Cloudspire feels like one of the closest board games gets to the structure of a video game. It’s built around tower defense-style play, where turns revolve around improving your forces, advancing across the map, and clearing out enemies. Publisher Chip Theory Games is clearly comfortable with this kind of design loop, but the real test is whether the experience is fun enough to justify the investment.

The game supports 1 to 4 players, with everyone controlling a different faction. Each faction comes with its own toolkit—distinct abilities, troops, buildings, and more—so you aren’t just choosing a color and a starting loadout. Instead, you’re committing to asymmetrical gameplay where your faction changes how the board is approached and how fights play out.

How Cloudspire plays

Box content includes solo and cooperative scenarios, but this review focuses on competitive play. Matches are commonly organized around four waves, or they end early when one player captures another player’s fortress.

The battlefield uses hex tiles laid out over multiple neoprene mats. The map includes roads for movement, plus spires, landmarks, and other spaces that shape where units can go and what tactics are available. At the start of each round, you handle preparation duties: draw an event card, gather resources for the round, buy items from the market, and expand the board with new earth tiles that can alter the landscape.

Building is a major time sink, and the game leans on a detailed player reference to keep everything running smoothly. Upgrading your fortress is also central to long-term power—those improvements may not matter immediately every time, but they can pay off later with significant benefits.

After construction, you set up your troops for the round using a pool of Command Points. Those points let you deploy your hero or troops, either as single units or in coordinated groups—giving you choices about whether to spread pressure or concentrate forces.

One of the more distinctive mechanics is that part of the motion is automated. Heroes move freely around the map, choosing routes as you see fit. Minions and other troops, however, advance in a more rigid way: they move a fixed number of spaces each round, generally driving them toward an enemy fortress. You can interact with spaces and chips on the board, but the overall objective remains clear—position your forces to reach enemy fortresses and take control.

Is Cloudspire worth investing in?

Cloudspire is priced at $149.99 USD for the base game, making it a high-stakes purchase for many players. A crowdfunding campaign has already ended, and it added even more content that can be purchased through Chip Theory’s website. That additional material is planned for future review, but for now the focus is on the standalone base box.

Despite the cost, the game’s appeal comes through in its feel and decision-making. It’s tactile and strategic, with minimal reliance on luck and plenty of room for planning. Knowing when to push, when to hold, when to invest in building, and when to conserve resources is key to doing well. On top of that, faction choice affects your entire game plan—something many players will love, though it can also become overwhelming for others.

Because the factions are asymmetric, you can’t just learn your own faction and call it a day. Winning requires understanding how every faction operates. The limitation here is social as much as mechanical: if everyone at the table has equal knowledge, the experience stays more even. When experienced players—essentially Cloudspire devotees—sit down with newcomers, the match can become noticeably unbalanced.

Cloudspire is also not a “play once and move on” kind of board game. Between its price tag and the sheer amount it offers, you typically won’t see everything it has to give until you’ve put in multiple sessions. Each faction plays differently enough to support repeat matches, but the trade-off is added complexity. Pre-game research on other factions is presented as close to a requirement if you want to enjoy the game rather than struggle through it.

That said, the review doesn’t frame the game as hard to teach—phase-to-phase flow isn’t overly complicated. The bigger issue is the strategy ceiling. The forced movement of troops toward enemy fortresses is highlighted as a standout feature, since it shapes decisions like when you deploy units and where you apply pressure. Meanwhile, heroes being able to roam freely lets you time and execute damage when your plans line up.

The design also pushes conflict to happen rather than letting it wait for player initiative. In many strategy board games, fights can only start when players choose to start them, which can lead to matches that miss out on certain kinds of excitement. With Cloudspire’s approach, players are encouraged to reconsider what they build, how they spend resources, and whether Command Points are being wasted.

Overall, the game is described as almost entirely strategy and almost entirely free of luck—exactly the kind of heavier experience the reviewer wants from this category. If you like what it delivers, it’s framed as worth the price, with the suggestion to check reviews and videos first because the entry cost is significant. For the reviewer, the base game landed instantly and is expected to stay in rotation for years.

What you need to know

Can you play Cloudspire solo, and is there a cooperative element to the game?

If I am new to board games, would you recommend picking this up?

What other games would you recommend for video gamers?

Are there other games with asymmetric powers I should consider trying?

Adam has been writing about video games since 2014 and board games since 2018. When he isn’t cheering for the Toronto Maple Leafs or Toronto FC, he’s usually got a controller in hand on a Nintendo platform—or he’s sitting at a table playing a board game. He also holds strong views on a few topics, including that there are better board games than Settlers of Catan, and that Nintendo doesn’t need to compete with Sony and Microsoft.

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