I bring some minor amounts of wood (enough to get the bare necessity for beds bins and barrels, and enough to make charcoal for making an axe), a good stack of tetrahedrite (10 - 15 usually), and take away the axe. From there I get a big surplus of points to spend elsewhere... like food! And dogs! (Prefer to buy normal dogs and train them later, less points used)
I keep the picks since it only costs 20 per pick anyway, but aside from that I just twitch about having to built a workshop above ground to make picks and an axe and then disassembling it. Just... doesn't click with me as right.
I also set my woodcutter/carpenter as an axedwarf, particularly because he's usually close to the main hall, outside, or in between when the trouble starts. So it's simple to just hit m, scroll down, hit a, and the guy pummels someone.
I do tend to give my miners some military skills (what else am I going to assign them for?), but I find they're almost never necessary this early on, as being attacked past thieves is usually rare, and the woodcutter can deal with that.
I bring 2 miners cause the faster I can get the insides carved out, the faster I can get everyone inside and have my fort running. They usually hit legendary before the year is over anyway (or in my experience, one hits legendary, the other hits it next season).
After my bare necessities are carved, exploratory mining then proceeds until I find an ore vein.