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 get this, you’ll need to find one of the newest animals: the armadillo. This tenacious creature was programmed into the game with the last mob vote and drops important 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 surely familiar with wolves. These animals have been in the game since the beta and make a wonderful pet for your world! And with some of the latest updates, they’ve become even stronger and can stand by your side in battle.
Wolves can be found in various biomes and are no longer just focused on the taiga. There are now nine different variations, which we’ll explore in more detail. 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 to tame the wolf. Once hearts appear, the wolf is yours!
In battle, wolves are your best team members! They attack anything that attacks you but will also follow your attacks. They have 40 hearts, twice as many as before the last update. You can heal and breed them by feeding them any kind of meat or fish.
Tamed wolves can be given a different collar color with dye or nicknames using name tags. This is especially practical if you have a lot of wolves!
Exploring All Wolf Coat Colors: Variants
Since one of the latest updates, it’s possible to find nine different variants of wolves. While you could previously only encounter a light gray wolf, there are now a range of colorful options, allowing you to bring even more furry companions to your side! When breeding, there’s a 50/50 chance to get a coat 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: Old Growth Pine Taiga
- Rusty: Sparse Jungle
- Snow: Grove
- Black: Old Growth Spruce Taiga
- Forest: Forest
Finding Armadillos and Using Horn Shields
Once you’ve tamed your wolves, you definitely need to equip them with the new wolf armor. For this, you first need to search for armadillos, one of the newest animals in Minecraft. They drop armadillo horn shields, which you can use to craft your wolf armor.
Armadillos can be found in warm areas, including various parts of the badlands (mesa) and savanna. Due to their brownish color, you’ll likely find them more easily in the savanna, where they stand out more. These cute little creatures are generally harmless but will retreat into their shells when they sense danger. They won’t attack you and are generally passive mobs.
Like most other animals in Minecraft, you can breed armadillos yourself. You’ll need spider eyes to feed them. It’s likely spider eyes because many spawners are found in the badlands. Interestingly, spiders fear armadillos, similar to how creepers fear cats. You can use this to your advantage!
Armadillos drop a specific item, namely their horn shields. You’ll need these to craft wolf armor. Like chickens and their eggs, armadillos drop a horn shield every five to ten minutes in the game. You don’t need to do much to collect a few shields. However, it’s easier with a brush. Each armadillo can theoretically give you unlimited horn shields, but with a brush, you can only obtain four (Java) or five (Bedrock) per use. This can become quite costly, especially with copper.
Creating an Automatic Farm: Horn Shields from Armadillos
If you want to craft some wolf armor, it’s worth setting up a small and passive farm for armadillo horn shields. This farm works completely automatically! If you have a lot of armadillos, you can collect unlimited horn shields for your wolf armor.
Simply build a small catch basin with a hopper and a carpet on top, because as mentioned, the armadillos occasionally drop their shields. 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 engage in a lot of battles, a pack of tamed wolves is one of your best weapons! However, without armor, they are very susceptible to damage, which is why you should seek out armadillos.
- Wolf armor absorbs all damage and has a durability of 64. The wolf itself remains unharmed.
- However, the armor doesn’t protect against all forms of damage. It doesn’t protect against: suffocation, freezing, thorns, wither effect, or the warden’s beam.
- You can repair worn armor with horn shields. A horn shield restores 8 durability points. You can recognize damage by the cracks appearing in the armor.
- Like leather armor, you can dye wolf armor in any color! This goes beyond the 16 different shades, as you can try various combinations. In the Bedrock Edition, this process is also possible with a cauldron, while in Java, it’s only through the crafting interface.
- You can remove the armor using shears. This allows you to repair or dye it.
Conclusion: Advantages of the New Update
Wolves have gained great features with the latest Minecraft update! Now it’s even more worthwhile to tame these four-legged animals and use them in battle. If you then 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 fight against monsters or even other players. You can also search for all nine types, together with your friends!
