Since I have nothing to add regarding militias and mercenaries... Speculation time!
Quote Originally Posted by Conners View Post
If Action Movie Heroes existed (the ones who can kill a hundred guys and do ludicrous stuff), how would this change the ancient world and warfare?
The first thing that springs to mind is actually logistics: how important it would be to find any available Heroes and get them into the army, so they're not wasted as carpenters or whatever. I would expect some kind of "warrior caste" or feudal system to develop, to give Heroes lives of leisure and luxury in return for their services. Something like the Mamlukes perhaps, where the Heroes form a military/ruling class, or a lot of small princedoms ruled by a Hero.

I also imagine a lot of searching for the Chosen Ones, in the best of fantasy traditions. Can they be bred or created? Perhaps murdering their parents at an early age would do the trick? There would be a lot of experimentation, I'd guess.

That aside, if there are supermen around your average soldier is kind of pointless. He's just Hero-fodder, and "mundanes" should probably just be kept off the battlefield doing something useful, like farming. This leaves battle to a chosen few, and in a pre-modern society I'd expect highly ritualized combat between chosen champions with the loser (being very valuable) perhaps being ransomed.

In a modern society, with every soldier being Rambo I don't know what to expect. With these Ramboes being infiltrators and demolition-men, the war would consist of Heroes trying to blow up important buildings or stop the bomb at the last second?