If you like tile-layers that hide a mean streak under a cosy coat of moss, put Treeline on your Gen Con 2026 radar. Christopher Ryan Chan's new game for 2-4 players hands each player a forest clan and turns them loose on a city of stone and brick, with one goal: prise it apart tile by tile and let the trees back in.
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Set up your group for freeTreeline comes from Burnt Island Games, the studio behind the well-liked euro Endeavor: Age of Sail, and from a designer with real range. Christopher Ryan Chan, who both designs and illustrates his games, is best known for the co-op horror hit The Night Cage, so it is a surprise to find him here swapping dread for greenery. You pick one of four clans, the Mushkins, Umbrams, Creeklers or Stumplings, and get to work. On your turn you flip tiles face up and place your troops into the empty spaces, and your placements can drag rival clans into the scrap too. When a row or column fills up, whoever holds the majority there claims the points for that line, then loses troops in the bargain. That is the catch: winning a line costs you the very pieces you would want for the next one, so every grab is a bet about where the board is heading.
Treeline makes its debut at Gen Con 2026, running 30 July to 2 August in Indianapolis, ahead of a wider release, and Burnt Island already has the clan art and rulebook up on its site. It is shaping up as a tidy little area-control game for groups who want a proper tussle without clearing the whole evening. Planning a convention run this year? You can see who else is going and organise a meetup on Backseat Gamer.
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Start organising for freeSources: Burnt Island Games | Meeple Mountain | We're Eric Martin
