Tactica Games

Tactica Games: "Where the dice fall." Since 2008 the shop in Dietlikon has been the meeting place of the tabletop scene around Zürich, with around 25,000 items from more than fifty game systems, more…

• Client: Tactica Games GmbH
• Built by: Orbit (Jan)
• Period: 2026

Tactica Games: "Where the dice fall." Since 2008 the shop in Dietlikon has been the meeting place of the tabletop scene around Zürich, with around 25,000 items from more than fifty game systems, more than eighty free events a year and a community of over a thousand hobbyists. Here, a shop sells not items but a sense of belonging to a game world.

Miniatures are available today from any mail-order supplier, often cheaper and delivered to the door. A shop like Tactica counters with what no parcel can deliver: open gaming tables, a painting table, leagues, tournaments and a forum where the scene meets between game days. In 2026 Orbit designs a platform for this that brings online shop, collection, community and events together in one application and reflects the shop's own stance: the physical shop first, the online shop as a complement. The hard part is not any single area but keeping catalogue, community and event calendar from crowding each other out, and making it all feel like an evening at the gaming table.

• Store by game system • Game finder in four questions • Collection with a Pile of Shame • Events with table reservation • Community auction house • Game helper for the table • Loyalty points and Hobby XP • Back office for the shop

Choose your battlefield

The first decision on the home page is the game system, not the product group. Every system is a tile with a photo of the gaming tables in the shop and its item count: Warhammer 40.000, Age of Sigmar, Horus Heresy, Middle-earth, Conquest, BattleTech, Bolt Action and Malifaux. Newcomers answer four questions about world, play style, army size and budget and get a system, a starter set and a route to the free demo game. And every Tuesday the home page shows what has just arrived.

The whole arsenal

The online shop filters by availability, game system and price and marks in green what is in stock in the shop. Every product shows ratings, stock and two buttons found only here: add to basket, or add straight to your own collection. Orders are collected in the shop in a chosen time slot, or sent by post.

A collection instead of an order history

The difference from an ordinary shop lies in what happens after the purchase. Purchased miniatures do not disappear into an order history; they become part of a collection and go through five stages: ordered, unbuilt, built, primed, painted. Named after the stack of unbuilt boxes, the area is called "Pile of Shame" and shows models, the share of painted figures, the stacks still waiting and the value of the whole army.

Eighty events, always free

Above all, a tabletop shop is a meeting place. The event calendar lists leagues, tournaments, campaigns, demos and painting sessions with registration and waiting list, and the registrations generate the tournament bracket, which updates live during the event. Gaming tables can be requested on a floor plan of the shop, and anyone without an opponent finds one under "Find a player".

The exchange, live

In the auction house members sell miniatures to each other, with countdown, bids and escrow through Tactica, from the unpainted box to the fully painted army. In the community 1,153 hobbyists show their painted minis, plan games and share tutorials, and every Tuesday the news reports what is going on in the shop. At the table, a game helper assists with dice, score counter and turn sequence, on any phone and without installing anything.

Loyalty that means something

The loyalty programme separates two things that are often mixed up. Loyalty points come from purchases and participation, such as entering a tournament or bringing someone new into the hobby, and they can be exchanged for rewards, up to painting coaching at the painting table. Hobby XP, by contrast, is earned by taking part, not by spending: for events, games and painted miniatures. It brings levels, badges and a place on the leaderboard, the same mechanics as in the games.

A back office for the shop

Behind the store, the shop's admin area has been designed too, with roles from the owner to temporary staff. The dashboard shows revenue, open orders, reorders and the week's events at a glance. Orders run from new through picked to collected, the inventory module recommends reorders, goods receiving shows what is arriving this week, and templates for email and SMS go out with one click.

A shop window for the gaming table

Tactica is staying with its existing online shop for now, and that is understandable: a shop that thrives on its community does not change its shop window on a whim. Even so, the design shows what matters: how a shop can remain a meeting place online too, where the gaming tables count rather than the lowest price. Store, collection, events, community and back office are fully worked out, and when the dice fall is for Dietlikon to decide.