I've been reading good things about Isildur ... obviously he's a strong hero, but also he carries the ring.

This started me wondering ... how do you use the ring/invisibility in matched play? Are there useful tricks? Is it ever worth taking a model like Bilbo or Frodo in a tournament army?

Can you? I mean, what if Sauron has it? I would not base your army off it.

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By all that you hold dear on this good Earth,
I bid you stand, men of the West!

Sure you can use the ring in matched play! It is true that the ring goes to the models by ranking but that does not mean that any of them are particularly likely to show up. It can certainly be a useful item for Isildur to have and I would always bring it with him. He does not have to put it on right away or at all even but having it as an option makes hi arguably the best duelist in the game against anything but Sauron. As for its use with the hobbits, I would say that it should not be treated as a key feature for anything other than a fellowship list. Both Bilbo and Frodo have such low fights on their own and are so slow that it makes it hard for them to get anything out of being invisible. Yeah, they could carry objectives and do sneaky things but they only move 4'in a turn which is a limitation all its own. I could see Frodo or Bilbo being used in tandem with a more powerful hero with the ringbearer acting as a debuffing assistant of sorts.

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"Draw your sword with a heavy heart, but swing it with a heavy hand"

You could be fighting ruffians or goblins

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By all that you hold dear on this good Earth,
I bid you stand, men of the West!

Actually, the goblin town version of gollum with ring works like a charm. He's the lowest of the list, so its not guaranteed that he has the ring. Then again, at 35 pts its not that big a risk.
With F5 gollum can outduel virtually anything while invisible, and again, if he does something you weren't counting on for a turn due to the enemy controlling him its not that big a deal. Its far worse for a powerhouse like isildur to be drooling around for a turn than for a wierd looking goblin captain like gollum

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Everything that has a beginning has an end
There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time

Will have to try the ring out in some games. Anyone ever take down Smaug or a balrog with an invisible Bilbo or Gollum? If you knocked Smaug's fight down to 4 and piled a warband in with an F5 hero, he'd probably be in trouble?