Paladin of Tyranny Mount Question: Horrid Dire Wolf or Winter Wolf?

[sage20500]

I'm currently building a level 6 Gestalt Paladin of Tyranny, one side will be full 20 Paladin, other side is a level of cleric, 2 levels of figher, and then about a few levels of LA buy off for becoming an undead PC, (Using the Revenant Template as its been given by LOTRfan, but as an LA of +4 at the DM's request.) The backstory and themes of the character is that he's been a Roman Legionnaire and Knight since the birth of Rome, and he's constantly working to furfill his duty as a soldier of Rome by doing what ever is necessary to protect the people and interests of Rome.

The big thing with all of this is that i've been embracing the imagery of a heavily armored spear user that fights on the back of a wolf since that's one of the main iconic symbols of the Roman Empire. As a paladin mount though, would I be better off with just sticking with using a dire wolf and seeing if the DM would allow me to upgrade it into being a Horrid Dire Wolf at a latter level, or would switching into using a Winter Wolf as my mount at 8 be better since it would become a magical beast as well as being intelligent? My original idea for doing this was that I was going to grab the leadership feat and turn my winter wolf mount into my cohort as well, but from the way my DM explained it to me, I wouldn't be able to actually do that until effectively character level 14, and then it'd only recieve at most 6 levels for me to allow it to gain actual class levels (2 as magical beast HD to increase to Size large, 2 as Fighter to gain Power Attack and Cleave, and then 2 as Warhulk for +4 to strength.)

Would I just be better off doing the former option of Dire Wolf - Horrid Dire Wolf and not bother with trying to make it a cohort?

Or is there any other wolf like creatures in the MM's that can become Paladin mounts at later levels that could be better options for me once available? I've been looking but so far I've only seen Winter Wolf as the biggest thing, (Aside from the X of Legend option which I'm pretty sure I can't take... I think...)

[Bronk]

Well, legendary creatures aren't themselves epic, and their CR's are around 9 or 10, so although you could probably swing having one as a mount, it would be at later levels. Since they also all have about 20HD, they'd be out of the running as a cohort until epic levels.

It looks like a Horrid Dire Wolf mount would be CR4, and so come online at paladin level 7. It looks like it would be slightly tougher, have an acidic bite, and start out at Int 6 due to your paladin level. It's also harder to ride, with a -4 penalty.

The winter wolf mount would be CR5, and so come online at paladin level 8. It has a bite augmented by cold damage, and the cold breath weapon. It has an Int of 9, but depending on how much of a stickler your DM is, it might actually be reset from 9 to 6, following the mount special ability chart.

They seem fairly similar, so I guess it depends on how much you like the cold breath.

There's also a worg, which is a wolf-like magical beast, somewhat intelligent already, CR2, and can be large at CR3 (only 2HD until a size increase), coming online as a mount at paladin level 6. It doesn't have any particular special abilities aside from being smart. The base worg is medium, but only 4HD, with a cohort level adjustment of only +1, so it could be had fairly early via leadership...