Okay, so, what I do when embarking is, with the exception of a grower (5 farming, 1 cook, 1 brew, 2 butcher, 1 tan) and clerk, put all my dwarfs points into combat skills. Particularly sword/axe, fighter, and shield user. Immediately have my grower and clerk dig in and make a decent start to the fortress while I have my five remaining dwarfs hunt down zombies.
One of the five has armor and competent level in armor user. He is my engager, my tank. I give individual orders to each of my soldiers to surround the targets until he closes in. The zombies focus on him, and he's tanking them pretty well for the most part while my fighters close in and chop them up. I keep this up until the grower and clerk have a hole big enough to move all the items I brought with me inside, then I have everyone haul everything inside, deconstruct the wagon with a sworddwarf and use the axedwarfs to chop down nearby trees.
Pull all the wood inside, and plug up the hole with a wall, preferably made of stone as I'm gonna use up all the wood making beds and other things, but one log less isn't going to hurt. After that I'm inside, and my grower probably has a 6x6 area dug out already for 4 3x3 farms while I have my clerk and spare soldiers making beds and whatever else I need.
2 picks, 2 axes, 2 swords, 5 bucklers, and leather armor to cover tank from head to toe (He doesn't get a weapon). Food, drink, 9 seeds of each. Cloth and thread in case my soldiers sustain any injuries. Whatever points left over for luxuries, like animals that you can skin for leather.
It's very fast to execute, and I've never been wiped out before when doing this.