Instead of trying to make them strafe to break follow, you can just macro in the change in /follow. I.e. when I start combat with "1" which is charge for my warrior, my slaves /follow themselves. I have a keybind to have my ranged /follow themselves.

I did the same thing on my "drink" keybind - got tired of forgetting to break /follow manually and the mages getting up as soon as I started looting. Having them follow themselves has proven quite useful in other circumstances.