Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

It's 40k - just like any novel author, you're free to make stuff up as you go. The fluff of the setting isn't truly consistent.

Here is a list of RL card game names - perhaps you can twist one of them to sound more 40k'ish, or just pick one of the lesser known games whose name might fit as it is.

That said, are there any novels your players think are cool? If so, perhaps taking an example from them would be better than coming up with something yourself. It's not that they are any more "canon", but you would probably evoke some sort of positive recognition effect, which is always nice.

lol, someone pitch that scene to ADB or so to include in a novel.

And I could definitively see a kind of tabletop game within the 40k setting. At least on some worlds. Not for the ordinary citizens, mind you ... but for the nobility, especially for the officers.
I mean, that's where tabletop originated in our real world, too!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wargaming#History
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel_%28wargame%29

And here's how the table of that Prussian game looked - this particular one was gifted to King Friedrich Wilhelm III:

I could totally imagine this being seen as a socially fashionable sport amongst the nobility of Praetoria or Valhalla, or as a training method for junior officers of the Cadian Interior Guard.

And little kids of the various lords grow up collecting small tin soldiers looking like Imperial Guardsmen and Space Marines. D'aww.

I imagine it would be like the table on the photo posted above, just with fancy miniatures, and then young officers go about playing war in a way that has them ending up merrily ordering whole companies of men into a bayonet charge. Grimdark? Not in my propaganda!

"Very well, I see the ol' chrono saying it's one o' clock... that means it's time for the assault! Leftenant Mellows, be a sport and rally the men, please."
"Jolly good, Sir! We'll show those Orks what's what."