Thanks for the prompt response.

nouveau.modeset=0 allows it to successfully boot all the way into the GUI.

In successful 4.10 kernel boots, nouveau console messages are present. In
unsuccessful 4.11 boots with console logging, the console messages would stop
and the screen would experience bad scrolling (redraw problems) at
unpredictable points in the list but never mentioning nouveau. I know that it
didn't complete booting without the screen because the ssh daemon never came
up, dashing my hopes for better logging.