I had an idea for a character I may use for a hypothetical oneshot a friend may run in the future, and I want some thoughts!

They run 2024 rules but allow for options to be picked from 2014 content, such as Kobold, which I'm choosing to have as my race. Basically, my Kobold will be a Battle Smith Artificer whose tail was chopped off in a prior scuffle and so they built a new mechanical tail for themselves that doubles as a mace. Would that fit the class/subclass I'm going with, or is there a potential better option? The friend suggested armorer artificer or beast barbarian, but I think what I chose works best, but I'm not sure. Where could I potentially go from here? I don't want purely optimal builds, I just want some inspiration for where I could take this character when the time comes.