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This one has been bugging me: what do you call a faction that is neither a hoard, nor an elite force?

Orks, Nids and Guard are, broadly speaking, hoard armies. At 5 points per model (roughly), they are masses of poor quality infantry that provide more bodies than you have bullets.

Marines (all forms), Eldar and Cron are elite armies. At 15+ points per model (roughly), they have few bodies on the table, but model is highly capable.

What do you call the in-between factions? Daemons, Sisters, and Tau (Empire, not Farsight Enclaves) are sitting closer to 10 points per model (roughly), which makes them more numerous than the elite armies, yet nowhere near the numbers of the hoards.

Composite force comes to mind if it has a mix of hoard and elite units like Tau.

General force for armies that have too few numbers or specialty units.

Armies as a whole do not tend toward one build or another. You can make a very elite Tyranid force (5 Flying Hive Tyrants) or a horde of Eldar (Storm Guardians+Banshees+Avatar of Khaine).

Specific army builds tend toward horde, generalist, and elite. Tau can bring lots of infantry, a small number of suits, or something in between.

 TheNewBlood wrote:
Armies as a whole do not tend toward one build or another. You can make a very elite Tyranid force (5 Flying Hive Tyrants) or a horde of Eldar (Storm Guardians+Banshees+Avatar of Khaine).

While I agree that some factions can make an elite list (most notably Farsight Enclaves and Nidzilla-style Nids), if you look at the faction in the big picture you could not call them elite factions. I would also disagree that you could make a hoard with a non-hoard army. Your Eldar Example has one Storm Guardian per two Boyz/Gauts/Guardsmen, while those Banshee and Avatar are chewing up a huge number of points for not many models. It is a very assault-oriented Eldar list, but most definitely not a hoard.

Space Marine Battle Company has lost so much punch that I feel like it almost falls into this category

I always wanted to build a 80-90% army of hormagaunts and Synapse warriors, just for fun. Then GW went and transformed the nid dex from hoard army to elite MC crazy. Also, too many flyers now.

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:
I always wanted to build a 80-90% army of hormagaunts and Synapse warriors, just for fun. Then GW went and transformed the nid dex from hoard army to elite MC crazy. Also, too many flyers now.

That is basically how I have always run my Nids (Hormagants and Termagants with Warriors, then a Hive Tyrant and Carnifex). I have never won a single game with them, but at least I have fun!

I remember when I first started playing and being afraid of my buddy's swarm nids list and taking lots of heavy bolters and feeling awesome... good times.