Kiting the map guards really depends on what unit they're lead by. Some mobs are really easy to kite (Devilfish come to mind) and others can be really, really, hard (like Beholders or Pirates/Sea Dogs). Sometimes it is possible to find a unit that you cannot kite, but it's rare. It happened to me in my current game, where I had a Ogre on Dersu who was literally stuck in the trees. He would show exclamation marks but wouldn't actually move to chase me. Oh well.
