Picking on a pike block - but was it legal?

I’ve been doing some very deep thinking about Pike columns being attacked in the flank and rear.
So I have decided to present my findings and observations here.
The problem comes from Figure 20a-2, when Spear-A is not present, like this:-

       ◄
Pike◄     ...here only the rear Pike is being attacked in the flank.
Pike        Should just the rear Pike turn to face, and end up looking like Figure 20c-2?
  ꜜ           Or should both Pikes, being rear-supporters, both turn together, like Figure 14b?

It’s no use looking at the diagrams or the rules for an answer, because there isn’t one.
Unfortunately neither Phil Barker nor the play-testers considered this circumstance.
Nowhere is this situation covered.
There is a hole in the rules.
So we need to ‘reverse engineer’ Phil Barker’s thought processes to fill-in this hole.

Phil Barker doesn’t want rear-supported columns broken up
He knows that rear-supported troops gain their strength from being rear-supported.
Take away that rear-support, and they become too weak and vulnerable.
So he tries to maintain that rear-support in all situations.
Here is the evidence:-
    Figure 20e:    why doesn’t the rear Warband-Y turn to face?...because that would break rear-support.
    Figure 20a-2: why doesn’t the rear Pike-Y turn to face?...because that would break rear-support.
    Figure 14c:     why doesn’t Pike-X move back like Pike-Y?...because that would break rear-support.
    Figure 13e:     why doesn’t Pike-Y line-up on its own?...because that would break rear-support.

Clearly Phil Barker wants rear-support to be preserved at all times, and not broken-up.
So he introduced the following phrase in the “Turning to Face” on page 10:-
“...unless they are already in full front-edge contact or providing rear-support”.
No doubt both he and the play-testers thought that would cover it, and prevent breaking support.
But that doesn’t cover every situation, as my red and blue graphic above shows.

If Phil Barker wants to preserve rear-support in all circumstances, he should have said:-
“...rear-supported columns all turn and/or move together to maintain their support.”
In other words, they act just like a double-based element, an all turn as one group.

The alternative view.
It would be remiss of me not to present the alternative view, that there is no missing rule, and everything is fine.
So here it is.
Take Figure 20a-1, and assume that Spear-A is not present. What happens?
Well, both Pikes will turn-to-face Spear-B, and the Pikes have a CF of 6 against a CF of 4 (advantage to the Pikes).
So Phil Barker is quite happy to have a Pike column attacked in the flank but still fight at full strength.
Now take Figure 20a-2, and assume that Spear-A is not present. What happens this time?
If only Pike-Y turns-to-face on its own, it will have a CF of 3 against the Spear CF of 4 (advantage to the Spear).

Hang on...which is it? Is being attacked in the flank a disadvantage to an unengaged Pike column or not?
Or are we basing the combat outcomes merely on gamey positional tricks?
I thought we had left gamey positional tricks behind in DBA 2.2?

But it gets worse.
Now take a Pike column that is unengaged to it’s front, and attack it in the rear with say a single Blade.
If only the rear Pike turns-to-face them, the Pikes will have a CF of 3 against the Blade CF of 5.
With nowhere to recoil, the Pike elements chances of being destroyed are 26 out of 36, or 72%.
Fair enough.
But if a second Blade were simultaneously engaging the front Pike, the rear Pike wouldn’t turn-to-face.
So adding another frontal Blade is actually a disadvantage, as it would be CF 3+3-1 v the Blade CF 5.
Having two Blades attacking a Pike column reduces the odds to 15 chances out 36, or 41.7%.
Two Blades attacking a Pike column is worse than just having one do it!
(But the two Blades would have 41.7% chance of killing both Pikes...the rear Blade on it’s own 72% to kill one)

Conclusion
Phil Barker ‘meant’ to have rear-support preserved in all situations.
All the diagrams show this.
But his choice of wording was a bit loose and imprecise.
It’s up to us to correct it...
...either that or rely on gamey positional tricks and weird one-is-better-than-two combat outcomes.




Some Helpful Downloads can be found here: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes
And here is the latest Jan 2019 FAQ: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ_2019_1st_Quarter

The problem with using Alexander's phalanx as a bench-mark for pike with rear support, is that the same considerations are unlikely to apply to the Hittite spearmen of the early imperial army, 14th century north Welsh spearmen and 15th century Italian Condotta militia pikemen.  And trying to use the phalanx to gauge how an army of 1st century AD German tribesmen might have performed seems even less helpful.