They do this, it’s explained in one of the streams if I believe, the ‘fear’ or ‘threat’ of monsters will over ride all actions that your non-combat units are doing and cause them to seek refuge.
As for guarding, I believe that has been answered that there will be some sort of system like that in the game:
You might find this thread interesting.
Also, if you use the magnifying glass in the top right corner near your profile picture and notification bubble you can search for existing threads, the search function is actually pretty decent for Discourse 