So if you get to pick a card, which one do you choose? If you don't get to pick, which ones are the worst? Here is my quick stab at arranging from Worst to Least bad.

1. Direct Hit! Guaranteed extra damage. (Bucket astromech can spend a charge to get rid of the original Direct Hit damage card though, so that's something.)
2. Console Fire: 50/50 chance of extra damage. If you roll cold red dice, this could be fine.
3. Structural Damage: No way to fix it and 1 green die is bad news.
4. Loose Stabilizer: Note, you will take damage if you do a straight maneuver but then SLAM a non straight maneuver.
5. Damaged Engine: Pretty bad. No way to fix it and all red turns aren't great. Ask the 1.0 Lamda.
6. Weapons Failure: Not Good. If you are flipping to be able to shoot, you don't want to lose a red die when you do. On the plus side, it is fixable.
7. Disabled Power Regulator: You are going to be super predictable next turn which leads to dead.
8. Damaged Sensor Array: Can't Slam until you fix it.
9. Hull Breach: If you aren't getting shot, you can fix it later for no down side.
10. Fuel Leak: See Hull Breach.

So how bad are the pilot crits?

• Panicked Pilot: Probably around 6.5. Two stress is bad for just about anyone, even Yeager.
• Stunned Pilot: Probably a 9.5. Can't flip it back but
• Blinded Pilot: Maybe a 9. Flippable and if you're SLAMming all over, you may not have mods all the time anyway.
• Wounded Pilot: Probably your "best" crit most of the time.

Random Thoughts.

• You cannot Advance Slam to repair a damage card.
• R5 Astromech is an interesting option because you can take one of the unfixable but benign crits like Damage Engine or Stunned Pilot and keep flipping it.
• Fireball title is not an auto-include for me as some of the Pilot Crits are preferable to any of the ship options.

I fully expect the go-to combination to be Damaged Engines & R5 Astromech

5 minutes ago, Innese said:

I fully expect the go-to combination to be Damaged Engines & R5 Astromech

Or the Disabled Power Regulator + Static Discharge Vanes combo someone came up with. For tossing ion tokens at aces.

6 minutes ago, Cerebrawl said:

Or the Disabled Power Regulator + Static Discharge Vanes combo someone came up with. For tossing ion tokens at aces.

If only SDV didn’t damage & stress you

6 minutes ago, Cerebrawl said:

Or the Disabled Power Regulator + Static Discharge Vanes combo someone came up with. For tossing ion tokens at aces.

I think it'll be hard to hit aces with this combo, because the Ionization doesn't happen until the Engagement phase, after the aces have had a chance to move/reposition (after first seeing where Kaz landed). This might end up being more useful as anti-swarm tech, as a way to keep a dangerous low-initiative ship out of the action for a round or more.

Damaged Engine with r4 astromech?

24 minutes ago, wurms said:

Damaged Engine with r4 astromech?

You get exactly one use out of that.

It doesn't flip on its own.

25 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

You get exactly one use out of that.

It doesn't flip on its own.

Cancels each other out, no? r4 astro reduces difficulty, damage engine increases difficulty, therefore turns are same difficulty. Am I missing something?

2 minutes ago, wurms said:

Cancels each other out, no? r4 astro reduces difficulty, damage engine increases difficulty, therefore turns are same difficulty. Am I missing something?

Oh it works for sure.

But you can only expose it once. That card doesn't have a repair action.

After that, it's face up so you can't use the ship ability again until you get another facedown card, which would probably be bad news in any case.

The advantage of R5 is that you can do it over and over again (expose, repair, expose, repair, etc.)

Just now, ClassicalMoser said:

Oh it works for sure.

But you can only expose it once. That card doesn't have a repair action.

After that, it's face up so you can't use the ship ability again until you get another facedown card, which would probably be bad news in any case.

The advantage of R5 is that you can do it over and over again (expose, repair, expose, repair, etc.)

1 hour ago, gamblertuba said:

So how bad are the pilot crits?

• Panicked Pilot: Probably around 6.5. Two stress is bad for just about anyone, even Yeager.
• Stunned Pilot: Probably a 9.5. Can't flip it back but
• Blinded Pilot: Maybe a 9. Flippable and if you're SLAMming all over, you may not have mods all the time anyway.
• Wounded Pilot: Probably your "best" crit most of the time.

You can't pick these for Kaz. It has to be a Ship card.

I was under the impression that damage card action are added to the action bar?

Are you sure they cannot be modified by the advanced SLAM feature?

Plus disabled power regulator won't trigger until you next engagement, so you can move the next turn.

6 minutes ago, Tyhar7 said:

I was under the impression that damage card action are added to the action bar?

Are you sure they cannot be modified by the advanced SLAM feature?

The only actions added to the action bar are icons set off in the right side of an upgrade card.

Anything with the Action: text isn't on your action bar so you can't Advanced Slam it.

7 minutes ago, Tyhar7 said:

Plus disabled power regulator won't trigger until you next engagement, so you can move the next turn.

If you flipped the card to remove your disarm, then you have to take the Ion as soon as you engage. There's no opportunity to pass it off, unfortunately, unless someone coordinates you an action. That's actually a reasonable suggestion though: Threepio could do it for Bucket, since he has calculate.

5 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

You can't pick these for Kaz. It has to be a Ship card.

Which is why they are set off in a separate section. Should have been explicit if someone wasn't up to date on the cards. My point was that the pilot cards are generally less punishing than any of the ship cards so maybe the title isn't an autoinclude? Probably better to just know though.

My current Kaz build is 48pts:
Title (damaged sensor array)
Heroic
Advanced SLAM
Contraband Cybernetics

R5 Astro is there to repair other incoming damage and keep Kaz's pilot ability online. If you don't bring the title, R5is key, because he allows you to fix your damage card no matter what it is. Heroic and Advanced SLAM are self explanatory. Cybernetics makes a lot of sense since Kaz is sortof on the clock already, with his ability turning off if he gets hurt too bad. Between cybernetics and his pilot ability, Kaz is almost a TIE defender. R5 is there to help

Now, on to your original question: is the title worth it, and if so, what damage card? If you want to SLAM early, I think you want the title because you don't want to risk getting a crippling crit (and more likely than not, you'll get a bad crit*). If you are just planning to brawl and use the SLAM as a panic button, the title is probably not worth it, because you'll most likely have taken more damage by then anyway. Personally, I think damaged sensor array and Fuel leak are the best crits. Sensor array is best if you're staying in the fight, since you will be focusing anyway (and you won't want to SLAM again until you've repaired the crit to enable your ability again). Fuel leak is better if you want to SLAM in, shoot, then SLAM out and spend another turn repairing before coming back in. The title lets you choose which of these tactics you want during setup, tailoring your approach to your enemy.

The part of the build I'm least sure about is the astromech. R5 lets you keep Kaz's ability online for longer and allows you to mitigate the effects of your ship ability after taking multiple damage cards, but is it worthwhile? At 4pts, it's not incredibly expensive, but r4 astromech is also a very appealing option in conjunction with advanced SLAM. The questions you have to ask are: how often will I be SLAMming (especially mid/late game with more damage cards)? Am I willing to spend turns sacrificing my action to repair damage instead of focusing? Kaz has unusually poor action economy for a resistance ship, but he's so cheap that I'd hesitate to bring a coordinate couch shuttle just to support him. I suspect that spending actions on R5 will just be a waste of time and I'd be better off using Kaz to focus instead. Better to have a relevant ship for a few turns than an irrelevant one for many turns. I do like your suggestion of using bucket with direct hit though - that means your first SLAM is effectively "free" (since you start and end with a single face down damage card) and it means your other ships are less likely to cop a direct hit later on. Bucket is a bit riskier from then on because you don't know what crits you have, but he doesn't cost actions to repair things and he might even fix stuff for free (like a loose stabiliser). Plus, you can fix crits after red moves when you couldn't have done a normal action anyway (so maybe drop cybernetics).

*I agree with your rankings except wounded pilot, which risks double-stressing you if you advanced SLAM a focus (and you will almost always want to do that after using the ship ability). With that in mind, picking a random crit means you have 21/33 probability of getting a favourable (rank 9 or better) crit. 2/3 chance for a bad crit is pretty bad, so I'd bring the title.

When you repair a face down damage card where does it go? To the bottom of the damage deck?

9 minutes ago, Waldorf28 said:

When you repair a face down damage card where does it go? To the bottom of the damage deck?

No, to a discard pile. Same place as cards from maarek's ability. When the damage deck runs out, take all cards from the discard pile and from destroyed ships and shuffle them to make a new deck

8 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

If you flipped the card to remove your disarm, then you have to take the Ion as soon as you engage. There's no opportunity to pass it off, unfortunately, unless someone coordinates you an action. That's actually a reasonable suggestion though: Threepio could do it for Bucket, since he has calculate.

For some reason I was thinking you removed the disarm in the engagement phase.

So all that said, if you have bucket on board then direct hit is the only crit that you can automatically resolve and repair in the same turn.

It will leave you with an unpredictable crit the next turn.

Any other ship damage card will require you to take an action in you next turn to resolve. Preventing you taking a slam action.

16 hours ago, gamblertuba said:

So if you get to pick a card, which one do you choose? If you don't get to pick, which ones are the worst? Here is my quick stab at arranging from Worst to Least bad.

1. Direct Hit! Guaranteed extra damage. (Bucket astromech can spend a charge to get rid of the original Direct Hit damage card though, so that's something.)
2. Console Fire: 50/50 chance of extra damage. If you roll cold red dice, this could be fine.
3. Structural Damage: No way to fix it and 1 green die is bad news.
4. Loose Stabilizer: Note, you will take damage if you do a straight maneuver but then SLAM a non straight maneuver.
5. Damaged Engine: Pretty bad. No way to fix it and all red turns aren't great. Ask the 1.0 Lamda.
6. Weapons Failure: Not Good. If you are flipping to be able to shoot, you don't want to lose a red die when you do. On the plus side, it is fixable.
7. Disabled Power Regulator: You are going to be super predictable next turn which leads to dead.
8. Damaged Sensor Array: Can't Slam until you fix it.
9. Hull Breach: If you aren't getting shot, you can fix it later for no down side.
10. Fuel Leak: See Hull Breach.

So how bad are the pilot crits?

• Panicked Pilot: Probably around 6.5. Two stress is bad for just about anyone, even Yeager.
• Stunned Pilot: Probably a 9.5. Can't flip it back but
• Blinded Pilot: Maybe a 9. Flippable and if you're SLAMming all over, you may not have mods all the time anyway.
• Wounded Pilot: Probably your "best" crit most of the time.

Random Thoughts.

• You cannot Advance Slam to repair a damage card.
• R5 Astromech is an interesting option because you can take one of the unfixable but benign crits like Damage Engine or Stunned Pilot and keep flipping it.
• Fireball title is not an auto-include for me as some of the Pilot Crits are preferable to any of the ship options.

But if you pick direct hit that means ONE less of those in your damage deck..lol

4 hours ago, Wayne Argabright said:

But if you pick direct hit that means ONE less of those in your damage deck..lol

If you only ever use slam when running away, then this is a fine plan. But if you find yourself in a situation where you want to attack after a slam, it stinks to flip that over.

49 minutes ago, CaptainJaguarShark said:

If you only ever use slam when running away, then this is a fine plan. But if you find yourself in a situation where you want to attack after a slam, it stinks to flip that over.

Makes Thane happy to see you have one though...

48 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Makes Thane happy to see you have one though...

If Thane is on the other side, you'd have to make sure to figure out what you're most willing to see when you can't deal with it, right? Probably red turns.

For Kaz specifically, I don't think Weapons Failure + R4 is a bad choice. It's offset by his bonus die against most defenders, and is pretty easy to fix.

13 minutes ago, PhantomFO said:

For Kaz specifically, I don't think Weapons Failure + R4 is a bad choice. It's offset by his bonus die against most defenders, and is pretty easy to fix.

Agreed.

Blinded pilot would be even better though since he rarely gets mods anyway. Pity he can’t choose Pilot crits.

Also curious if Rose/Holdo would be worth bringing to eat the disarm and hand him a focus.

Maybe something like this?

https://raithos.github.io/?f=Resistance&d=v8ZsZ200Z345X172WW242WY378X172WW6WWWW315Y231X172W5WW175W186W171WY387X172WWW&sn=Unnamed Squadron&obs=

So, after my essay above I tried actually building some squads, and I found that a lightly loaded Kaz is much easier to fit into a list. The droid is probably the first thing to go, and then cybernetics or advanced SLAM.