There are two myths in BM, special abilities of SFs and Hero bonus. I've seen hero bonus in battle, not so sure about special abilities unless you count some random instances where almost all my wounded men healed up and crazy ranged hits even in a midst of a storm.
Hero bonus is right on the wiki. It's not a big bonus, but essentially your noble counts as one man for the purposes of determining CS (or something similar).
And the SF of Makar I have seen with my own eyes, on battle reports. Also the former ruler of Makar, Sordnaz, confirmed as much on another forum thread--read it and weep:
http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,397.msg7486.html#msg7486
