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Someone told me that the following situation is how you play piling in but it strikes me as wrong.

Say you have 2 defenders one directly ahead of the other with minimal spacing between them. An attacker comes within 1" of the front model and destroys it. According to my opponent I do not get to retaliate because I have no one engaged with the enemy and since no one is engaged I can't pile in to attack. The key he points to is

"Starting with the player whose turn is not taking place, the players must
alternate selecting an eligible unit from their army and fighting with it
(see right). An eligible unit is one that is within Engagement Range of an
enemy unit and/or made a charge move in the same turn. (BRB p228)

FIGHT
When you select a unit to fight, it first piles in, then the models in the unit
must make close combat attacks, and then the unit consolidates.
PILE IN
When a unit piles in, you can move each model in that unit up to 3" — this is
a pile-in move. Each model in the unit must finish its pile-in move closer to
the closest enemy model. A model that is already touching an enemy model
cannot move, but still counts as having piled in. Remember that a unit must
finish any type of move in unit coherency (BRB p229)"

He said that since, at the time I get to choose a unit that unit is no longer engaged. I don't get to pile in. The question, to me, is one of timing is eligibility determined at the end of the charge phase/start of the fight phase or at the time of when the unit would get to fight under ordinary circumstances?

Your friend is right, your unit is not eligible to fight as it does not have any enemies within engagement range.

Eligibility is determined at the point of selection and not at the start of the fight phase. Therefore a units eligibility can change throughout the fight phase as other units are removed or move around them.

The order of selection in the fight phase and the effects that can have on which units can fight is an important skill to get a hold on.

Yes, the way your friend is playing is how it is supposed to work.

Okay, it just feels odd to me that the timing doesn't occur at the start of the phase but that's GW for you.

Thank you.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Okay, it just feels odd to me that the timing doesn't occur at the start of the phase but that's GW for you.

Thank you.

I think it works quite nicely. Not only does it mean that you don't have to remember which of the many units on the table, yours and your enemy's, were eligible to fight at a point in time but it makes the fight phase a really interesting game in its own right. There is so much clever stuff you can do in that phase and it's, I think, the only point in the game where both you and your enemy can "overlap" turns and pull clever moves on each other. It feels pretty dynamic and "important".