I tried your instructions but I dunno if I just too much of a noob or something just went wrong, I couldn’t find anything in /etc/sddm.conf and then from there on I tried updatedb but said it couldn’t find the command. So I am not sure what I did wrong.
IMHO the autologin discussion is going into wrong direction.
Starting from here you need to edit the config file for awesome to set the terminal. I’d suggest to edit ~/.profile and set
export TERMINAL=/usr/bin/konsole
Other important config file is ~/.config/aresome/rc.lua
I use Awesome in FreeBSD. I suppose it works the same way in Linux.
If updatedb command is missing, package mlocate is missing. If /etc/sddm.conf is missing, probably sddm package is missing. You can install both via:
pacman -S mlocate sddm
Once done, remove the Autologin section in /etc/sddm.conf.
Then locate the path of awesome’s rc.lua (updatedb; locate rc.lua)
Copy it as ~/.config/awesome/rc.lua
Once done reboot the system. Boot into Awesome, and right-click on the desktop. Right-clicking should give you an entry for Terminal. By default, terminal is xterm, but you can set your preferred terminal by editing ~/.config/awesome/rc.lua
If things don’t work out as expected, drop in a message - although I would be hard-pressed for any further information/help.
sorry for interrupting… but as a single user, i happily use 2 DEs [XFCE & GNOME] along with various WM including awesome/bspwm/dwm/i3/Weston/Wayfire etc… without any glitch.
only thing i kept in common is the terminal / file manager and browser deault to same across all. i never found any glitch and all i do to hop environment is choose from the sddm menu [i replaced lightdm with sddm].
our respective config should lie in the (dot)config folder in our hme dir so overwriting with manjaro-settings should not affect previous config. just sharing my experience 
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how do I get the option of which desktop to load when I boot? Mine keeps booting into GNOME.
if using sddm OR lightdm OR GDM, you should see a button / arrow as pulldown menu and display installed DE/WM. choose your choice.
if on TTY login
add line to .xinitrc to souit your WM/DE
OR you can simply type
USER$ dbus-launch --exit-with-session openbox/fuxbox/startxfce4 etc [coose any one you have installed]
i do this to test drive on the VMs i keep installing to improve my learning curve