Do you want it to animate dynamically? Dangle and bounce and such?
--If so, and if you've got the processing power to spare, you could make them all rigid bodies and nail them to each other.
If you don't need it to animate, I'm afraid I think you're just going to have to position them by hand... I can't think of an easier way off the top of my head; maybe someone else will have something.
Oh, well, I suppose you could play around with geometry and normal constraints... don't know how straightforward that would be, though.
Sorry I couldn't be of more help. Good luck!
-Steve