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Heya, pretty much a complete Neophyte here with a vision for a thematic army.

I love regular humans in fantasy settings. I like empathizing with the fear and consequent courage that must come from being a normal person battling the extraordinary. In D&D, I'm the human fighter. Unsurprisingly, I have ambitions of raising a Freeguild army, the Black Manticores of Ashgart (Hammerhal).

I picture them as a scrappy, can-do, irregular sort of outfit, so a Steam Tank doesn't quite sit right with me. Instead I find the idea appealing of one Stormcast Hero who basically serves as the company tank. I like the idea from a character perspective, tonally I like the idea of contrasting this tank's impossible power with the humans in their care, and I suspect I'll appreciate a model with a little more starch than the hardworking volunteers of the Manticores.

I'm having some trouble finding the right hero, though. Ideally I'm looking for a model on foot, with excellent survivability, some kind of means of intercepting or mitigating threats to softer targets, and not many abilities that key off of other Stormcast. The Knight-Questor seems like the closest fit, but it's a little mechanically boring and visually bland. The other alternative I was looking at was Neave Blacktalon, but her Windriding ability is wasted in a Cities army, and my hunch is her extra wound isn't better than the Knight's Shield ability for tankiness.

Am I missing anything here I should be aware of? I realize I'm burdening this choice with a lot of subjective fluff, but I'm cool with a sub-optimal composition as long as I'm not leaving something more feasible on the table due to ignorance. What's the etiquette surrounding kitbashing if I find something mechanically useful but visually unsuitable?

Thanks for your time!

Gardus steel soul? 6 wounds, 3+, 5+ ward. About as tanky as you can get with foot sce hero

As for kit-bashing etiquette?
Generally try & keep it reasonable. But this is something best discussed with whoever you actually play with.