Wolves were the first pets you could tame in Minecraft. They are loyal companions in your world and have received many exciting updates over the years, making them even better! They can fight alongside you against monsters and now have beautiful armor to wear! To achieve this, you’ll need to find one of the newest animals in the game: the armadillo. This resilient creature was added during the last mob vote and drops essential items to prepare your wolves for battle. We’ll show you how to assemble an army of armored wolves and also how to set up a small automatic farm for horn shields!
Finding and Taming Wolves: Tips for Taming
Most players who have been playing Minecraft for a long time are likely familiar with wolves. These creatures have been in the game since the beta and make wonderful pets for your world! With some of the latest updates, they have become even stronger and can stand by your side in battle.
Wolves can be found in various biomes and are no longer confined to the taiga. There are now nine different variations, which we’ll explore in more detail shortly. They often appear in packs, giving you the opportunity to tame multiple wolves at once. You’ll need bones from skeletons — each has a 33% chance of taming the wolf. Once hearts appear, the wolf is yours!
In combat, wolves are your best teammates! They attack anything that attacks you and follow your attacks as well. They have 40 hearts, twice as many as before the last update. You can heal and breed them by feeding them any type of meat or fish.
Tamed wolves can be given a different collar color using dye or nicknamed with name tags. This can be especially handy if you have a lot of wolves!
Exploring All Fur Colors of Wolves: Variations
Since one of the latest updates, it’s possible to find nine different variants of wolves. Whereas you could only encounter a light gray wolf before, there is now a range of colorful options so you can recruit even more fluffy companions! When breeding, you have a 50/50 chance of getting a fur color from the parents. Depending on the biome, you can encounter packs of one to eight wolves.
- Ash Gray: Snowy Taiga
- Pale: Taiga
- Spotted: Savanna Plateau
- Striped: Wooded Badlands
- Chestnut: Giant Tree Taiga
- Rusty: Sparse Jungle
- Snow: Mountain Grove
- Black: Giant Spruce Taiga
- Forest: Forest
Finding Armadillos and Using Horn Shields
Once you’ve tamed your wolves, you should definitely equip them with the new wolf armor. To do this, you first need to search for armadillos, one of the newest creatures in Minecraft. These drop armadillo horn shields, which you can then use to craft wolf armor.
Armadillos are found in warm areas, including the various parts of the Badlands (Mesa) and the Savanna. Due to their brownish color, you are more likely to encounter them in the Savanna, as they are easier to spot there. These cute little creatures are generally harmless but retreat into their shells when they sense danger. They do not attack you and are generally passive mobs.
Like most other animals in Minecraft, you can breed and multiply armadillos yourself. You need spider eyes to feed the armadillos. This might be because many spawners are found in the Badlands. Interestingly, spiders are afraid of armadillos, much like creepers are afraid of cats. You can use this to your advantage!
Armadillos drop a specific item, namely their horn shields. And you need these to create wolf armor. Like chickens and their eggs, armadillos drop a horn shield every five to ten minutes in the game. So you don’t necessarily have to do much to collect a few shields. It’s easier with a brush, though. Each armadillo theoretically gives you an unlimited number of horn shields, but per brush, you can only get four (Java) or five (Bedrock). This can get quite costly, especially with the copper.
Creating an Automatic Farm: Horn Shields from Armadillos
If you want to craft some wolf armor, a small and passive farm for armadillo horn shields is worthwhile. This operates completely automatically! If you have a lot of armadillos, you can use this method to collect unlimited horn shields for your wolf armor.
Simply build a small collection basin with a hopper and a carpet on top, because as mentioned, the armadillos occasionally shed their scales. Get two armadillos with a lead and breed them to get a few dozen. Then you just have to wait!
The Properties of Wolf Armor in Minecraft
But why do you need wolf armor? Well, if you do a lot of fighting, a pack of tamed wolves is one of your best weapons! However, without armor, they are very vulnerable to damage, so you should go in search of armadillos.
- Wolf armor absorbs all damage and has a durability of 64. The wolf itself is therefore not injured.
- However, the armor does not protect against all forms of damage. It does not protect against: suffocation, freezing, thorns, wither effect, or the Warden’s beam.
- You can repair worn armor with horn shields. One horn shield restores 8 durability points. You can recognize damage by the cracks that appear in the armor.
- Like leather armor, you can dye wolf armor in any color! This goes beyond the 16 different color tones, as you can try various combinations. In the Bedrock Edition, this process is also possible with a cauldron, in Java only through the crafting interface.
- You can remove the armor using shears. This allows you to repair or dye it.
Conclusion: Benefits of the New Update
With the latest Minecraft update, wolves have gained great new features! It’s now more worthwhile than ever to tame these four-legged creatures and use them in battle. If you also collect horn shields from armadillos, you can equip your wolves with armor. Get your own Minecraft server and assemble a small army of wolves to take on monsters or even other players. You can also go on a quest to find all nine types, together with your friends!
