Here's a rather simple construction task for an aspect of skirmish wargaming that always bothered me. How do I get my little lead guys climbing ladders into the castle or the Alamo instead of just standing at the bottom of the wall rolling dice? When much of the fighting is done from the ladder itself, or it takes more than one turn to reach the top, or when I have three guys climbing the same ladder, but at different heights, there should be a way to show this in a skirmish game. Little stick ladders that look really good are generally nonfunctional. I've found a style of ladder that's a bit bulkier than pure realism would demand, but really works well. The first requirement is that your figures have a base that is larger than the manufacturer provided. Most skirmish gamers do this as a matter of course (pennies seem to be the state-of-the-art development). All of my 25mm Essex medievals for playing Siege/Cry Havoc are mounted on 1-inch washers, which adds a few cents to the cost of each figure. This is certainly larger than necessary, but I've got all of the Siege/Cry Havoc counter information painted on the base, so I need the extra space. The ladders I use are made out of balsawood sticks of two sizes, obtainable from most hobby shops. I use a 3/16 by 3/8 for the steps, with a smaller 1/8 by 3/8 for the side pieces. I cut the individual steps to the same width as the figure bases, and glue them on the side pieces of the ladder at intervals just wider than the thickness of the base. The initial construction looks like figure 1. All the balsawood sticks are completely painted in a single shade of brown before any construction begins - you'll never get a paintbrush into those narrow cracks after it's built. There will inevitably be some touching up, but the bulk painting is done. The next step is what helps bring the appearance of these ladders a little closer to realism: paint the bottom 1/2 to 2/3 of each rung black. From a distance, the rungs appear to be the proper size and proportion. Yet the true space between them is quite small, and a figure will be able to stand on any rung on his way to the top (figure 2). You may want to experiment with the size of balsa used. The ladders may seem a bit wide, because of the size of the figure base, or a bit thick due to the size of balsawood selected. just remember that any reduction in size trades off against the amount of leverage keeping the figure in place and the overall durability of the final product. The nicest aspect comes when Bors moves 2" and then climbs the first 4" of a 7" ladder, while Fursa had to run 5" and starts up the ladder behind him 1" off the ground. It's the kind of playability I'm looking for in skirmish gaming. If your game has ladders and sieges, these ladders are worth a try. Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. VIII No. 1 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1987 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com