XServe with Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion Clients

Okay, bare with me, as I'm fairly new to the whole Mac Server world. I have learned a whole lot over the last year and I've been able to completely manage our 60 Snow Leopard Clients on our XServe.

Last year, I came into an existing setup with ~60 clients running Snow Leopard and an XServe running on Snow Leopard. We utilize Server Admin and Workgroup Manager to manage our user accounts and our clients. We have over 300 users and utilize Portable Home Folders with our accounts.

Over the last year, I've learned a whole lot about managing the system that is already setup. I've made quite a few preferences and file structure changes utilizing Server Admin and Workgroup Manager. After getting new hard drives in three machines, I learned how to re-image them and get them set back up with our Workgroup Manager. I learn things pretty quickly and have a pretty high technology aptitude.

So, here is the predictament I'm in now...our county just purchased 31 new Macs to add to our network. These are running Mountain Lion.

I have a few questions, and I'm not exactly sure where this post should have been. I think the major questions/issues I face right now include:

1. Will I be able to manage the Mountain Lion clients utilizing our existing server and Workgroup Manager?
   We need our server to work seemlessly with the 31 Mountain Lion clients and the 60 Snow Leopard Clients.
   
2. Once I get one machine setup correctly, I need to create an image of it so that I can then utilize this image on the other 30 machines.
   1. How do I create an image and then deploy it?
   2. Do I complete this step before or after I have setup the first client with Workgroup Manager?

Also, am I missing something? I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything important in regards to getting these new workstations setup on our network.

Thank you so much for all your help! Any information you provide is much appreciated.