Total War: Warhammer is making an official collaboration with Dota 2

In a rather brilliant marketing move the team behind Total War: Warhammer has announced a Dota 2 competition that challenges the talented community hat-makers with the creation of 'Warhammer Fantasy Battles' themed goodies.

The best entries will be bundled in a treasure chest that will become available for purchase on September 1st, with a special (and free) version of the chest going out to everyone who pre-purchases Total War: Warhammer on Steam. This special version will contain visually-unique and pre-order exclusive variants of Warhammer themed items, or in other words, plenty of new hats to brag with.

Submissions will be accepted until 10:00 am PDT on August 22nd, after which the contest will be closed down and the chest officially released on September 1st. The eight selected winners will receive Total War: Warhammer, the complete Total War collection, the Dawn of War franchise pack, and most likely a cut from the sales of the chest itself, something that Valve has done with every single community compilation so far.

You can read all about the rules, regulations, and various other legal jibber-jabber by going to the Dota 2 developer forums.

Personally I think this is an excellent idea as the Dota 2 community gets a whole bunch of swanky new hats to play around with, the item makers get some much needed recognition and nifty prizes, and the Total War: Warhammer team gets some cheap advertising, so everyone wins!

To end all of this on an even happier note, Creative Assembly has recently announced that the Chaos faction for Total War: Warhammer will be given out as a free DLC to anyone that purchases the game within the first week of release, rather than purely as an incentive for pre-ordering.