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[WealthyRadish]

I go with 5 proficient miners, a proficient grower, and a protonoble with trickier social skills, but it really depends on playstyle. You generally want to go for a balance between immediate usefulness and long term difficulty, which largely depends on where you embark. Also, pre-embark, I always check the dwarf civilizations in the legends page, so I don't choose a pansy civilization that's only ever fought badgers. That'll guarantee a good number of soldier immigrants, with more recent attacks better.

MISSCELLANALOUS TIZP:
-Don't embark with anything that can be made of wood, which includes axes. Two logs costs 6 points, and lets you make a carpenter's shop, then a training axe, which can hilariously enough chop wood. That's a 62 point difference for minimal effort. After that you're pretty much set, unless your site doesn't have trees.
-Anvils are pointless and expensive, as a metal industry in half a year would be ricockulous. Traders will pretty much always bring some, and even if they don't the first time you probably won't need them for a year anyway.
-If you need medical supplies and a doctor before you can make them, you're screwed anyway.
-Only bring cheap 2 point meat, and only one unit from each animal (no prepared organs). That'll give you a crapton of free barrels, as each individual unit of different meat requires a barrel. Cooking it on embark is also helpful.
-If you want bags, for an early farm growing millable plants, bring sand instead of empty bags. A tenth the price, plus free sand.
-Embarking with a ton of war bitches and one war man-bitch will let you get a pseudo-military fairly early, with puppy meat/leather to spare.
-Attributes and personality traits matter when choosing dwarf professions. If it's someone important, make sure they have 'slow to tire' so they don't go on break for half a year every other week.
-Every dwarf can do anything, so there is flexibility. Many important 'jobs' don't really have important 'professions', so avoid wasting points on professions that only really effect efficiency.
-Pretty much all of the above can be thrown out in an evil biome, which is an entirely different beast.

[Escapism]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

-Anvils are pointless and expensive, as a metal industry in half a year would be ricockulous. Traders will pretty much always bring some, and even if they don't the first time you probably won't need them for a year anyway.

-Attributes and personality traits matter when choosing dwarf professions. If it's someone important, make sure they don't have 'slow to tire' so they don't go on break for half a year every other week.

Well, bringing an anvil allows you to buy raw materials instead of picks/weapons. From 2 hematite and 2 flux stones, which costs 66 points iirc, you get 8 bars of steel. Smelting copper or bronze gives you something along the lines of 4 bars for 10 points. The mining change pretty much broke metal ores as far as trading and the embark screen goes.

  As for the "quick to tire" affecting amount of breaks they take: I though that attribute only affected combat? Has anyone tested this? And, realisticallly, it'd be better with slow to tire than quick to tire.

I like embarking with 6 hunters (that is, 1-point ambushers), and a butcher/tanner. Mostly because hunting trains archer/marksman ridiculously fast, but I wouldn't recommend it if you don't have access to wood or if you are embarking in an evil biome. Doing teacher/military skill embarks is pretty neat as well, though I don't know how that compares to having 2-man sparring squads.

Always remove the splints/crutches/buckets etc. from your supplies; they cost a lot and are typically not needed in the beginning.

[Sus]

2 miners, lumberjack, lumberjack/axdorf, hunter/marksdwarf, doctor, farmer
anvil, 2 picks, 2 axes, crossbow, some bolts, quiver
one breeding pair of sheep, turkeys, cats and dogs each
as much food, booze and seeds as possible

is pretty much my standard setup.

If going for evil embark, more soldiers and less hunting and lumberjackery plus an absolutely crucial item called "No Animal".
(All of my evil embarks so far have, sadly, been wiped out in less than one season anyway.)

[WealthyRadish]

Oh, that was a typo, slow to tire is better. From experience, I've found that whenever I've noticed a particular dwarf taking long and frequent breaks over a fort's lifespan, they've been 'quick to tire'. Conversely, after I've started only giving permanent positions to ones with 'slow to tire', it's less noticeable. It could be an anecdotal coincidence with something else, like a personality trait, though.

For three or more miners, it would seem that the anvil is worthwhile, as 3 picks would be 132, while the anvil, copper ore, and 3 fireproof stones would be 118. Though honestly, it seems like a hassle for the 24 points to devote early labor and wood for making picks. You would need more flux stone to go from hematite to steel, as it'd be '2 hematite + 2 charcoal --> 8 iron', then '4 iron + 4 flux + 8 charcoal --> 4 pig iron', then '4 iron + 4 pig iron + 4 flux + 8 charcoal', bringing it to 96 points and 18 charcoal for those 8 bars. If copper is also brought, though, bringing flux would be unnecessary (if the map has flux), so only 48 points for it. The high early charcoal demand would be a bit annoying, especially on some embarks, and I can't really imagine why steel would be useful before the first trader. Maybe on a challenge embark in an evil area, but I seriously doubt you'd have the time to chop the trees, build the workshops, smelt  the ores, and craft the tools before things get nasty.

Still, it'd be worthwhile for 5 or more miners, saving 93+ points, as well as an early military. Though honestly, a few war dogs, some traps, and a drawbridge will serve a fort's needs for quite a while, so the steel aspect still seems like a needless hassle. Definitely worthwhile for copper, though.

[WealthyRadish]

Double post. Sad day.

[roughedge]

20 hens + rooster for infinite food
dogs and cats as much as you want for food too
25 plump helmet spawn
25 sweet pod seeds
7 picks
the rest booze

7 miners with 0 or more mining skills

Seven miners make start easierbecause its faster, just dig a moat with the entranced walled/dewalled manually around your wagon. Also the hens make tons of eggs and two 25 squares farms one of plump helmet only and one with half the year sweet pods and then plump helmets will produce lots of food. Be sure to brew sweet pods immediatly as they get reseeded the next season.

Suggestions
Bring extra mineral in an effort to give a pick to each migrant in the early waves
Process ressources in batch, for example dig a large room stop mining then proceed to make pots with all the stones then make 7 stills and then brew all plants at once. Only when you are somwhat ahead of task can you consider expanding your fortress in a superfluous way. Also consider not using pots for plants instead use large stockpiles then process immmediately, use pots only for drinks. Build farms, plant stockpile and stills next to each other!!! Saves time! Mining a large soil area give easy mining training and lots of space early. As for defense it is easy to just buy 30 woods make 30 cages, line them in the entrance and build a small pit early on. Be sure to check articles on mass pitting!

[Laserhead]

I don't start with any miners. I start out with a couple military trained guys who I set to mining when I make picks. They can learn as they dig, and get a workout.

I don't start with picks, either, I just pack a bunch of ore and coal and some wood on the wagon and build a metal industry on the surface before starting in with the digging. With the new changes making ore worth more metal I can have a lot of metal. The military guys mine until the first migrants, and anyone in the first migrants who doesn't obviously do something else takes a pick and takes over at that point.

[Troas]

I go with the following:

Mason/Building designer
Armorsmith/Brewer
Mechanic/Cook
Weaponsmith/Metalcrafter
Doctor (all 5 medicine skills at level 2)
Lumberjack (Axedwarf 5, dodge 2, Carpenter 3)
Broker (Negotiator, Judge of Intent, Appraiser, Pacifier, Marksdwarf)

1 male and 2 female dogs
Copper nuggets and casserite or hematite and flux stone
10x wood
>10x bituminous coal
5x leather
5x silk string/yarn
5x silk/wool cloth
one of each sand
assorted cheap meats
one of each milk
extra plump helmet seeds
One pick

Pause the game when you start, and assign your pick to the Broker, removing all hauling jobs.  set up food storage areas outside your entrance, and lay out your outside workshops.  Set the doctor to picking herbs.  While your broker learns mining you can get the food secure, burn 1 log for coke, and start smelting your ore into an axe, a crossbow and bolts and whatever other tools you need.  Make cheese then biscuits to free up the barrels - be sure to turn off cooking for plants.




Pause

[Ross Vernal]

Armorsmith/Weaponsmith
Miner
Mason/Building Designer
Cook/Record Keeper
Planter/Carpenter
Weaver/Spinner
Teacher/Axe

Chickens, alpacas, dogs, lots of bituminous coal and bismuth bronze supplies, pick, seeds, booze, milk, sand, clay, blocks, and some gypsum powder.

[Callista]

It really depends on what kind of place you're embarking in.

If you have trees, you will want some axes for your woodcutters; the carpenter can train up because you'll have enough wood for him to do so. If no trees, you'll want to bring a lot of logs--enough to keep you until the first caravan--and spend points on a competent carpenter.

Dangerous area? Bring some basic armor and weapons. Consider a trained miner and mason, because those will allow you to dig in fast and put your bridge up quickly.

It's usually a good idea to give your broker a point of appraisal and Judge of Intent.

As for animals: I prefer sheep and turkeys. Turkeys are a great source of food, and sheep have wool, milk, and horns (for your moody dwarves). Sheep need pastures and turkeys need nest boxes but all those are available underground. A pair of puppies is useful too, to train into war dogs later on.

Weaponsmiths and armorsmiths are important if you're embarking in a low-mineral area because of how much time and materials it takes for them to train up. If you've got an asston of  tetrahedrite or something of that sort, though, no need to worry about bringing them ready-trained; they can just churn out copper stuff until they're Legendary. Most of the time if you've got ores set high ("multiple" deep and shallow ores) you don't need to worry about bringing weaponsmiths ready-trained. They'll have enough ore to train on.

Cloth and leather? Ehh. Not a big deal. You won't need them until your dwarves' current clothes wear out and by then you'll have your underground farms set up and producing pig tails, and your turkeys will have chicksploded into enough turkey leather to produce leather goods.

I like to bring a couple copper bars just in case the dwarves have an early mood that requires them. If I have the points, also a few pieces of leather and cloth.

Bringing lots of food and booze lets you put off getting your food and drink industries going. It's nice to have that breathing room, generally, because there's just so much to do at first.

Embarking with seven pickaxes is convenient, just because if everyone helps with the initial mining out of the fort, it's done more quickly (i.e., before the first big migrant waves). And it's very nice to have more than the one or two pickaxes, because your dwarves will probably be dwarfy enough to lose at least one.