Giant wolf spider is on the cover art of Conquest of Kumanjaro, and it would synergize with the johktari beastmaster better if it was a canine. Since it's not an animal and it costs 15 mana, the Johktari Beastmaster never has the chance to summon it with the Lair, and it does not synergize with the hunting bow or her wounded prey ability, and since it's not an animal it doesn't go well with any of the other spells she uses except tanglevine. Don't get me wrong, being able to put stuck conditions on things that easily is good, and it has a 2 dice attack with a chance of taint that becomes amazing when the target is restrained, which is a great attack against everything that doesn't have poison immunity or uncontainable. However, since the Giant Wolf Spider does not synergize well enough with anything the Johktari Beastmaster wants to do for its mana cost, it is never worth it for her to summon it. Giving it the canine subtype would allow it to synergize with redclaw, which would give canine builds a much needed mobility advantage, since unlike thunderift falcons, bitterwood foxes are much more easily hindered, and restraining a creature prevents it from hindering its enemies.
I'm not sure if I think it should get the animal subtype though. Giving it the canine subtype might be enough to make it more worth summoning, its combination of attacks would already powerful enough without having access to wounded prey, marked for death, and the totems. It's already doing 5 average damage to most creatures when they are restrained, which is about the same amount on average as Redclaw, Alpha Male. With the canine subtype and redclaw alpha male's support, it's attack would be 3 dice instead of just 2, so it would do 6 damage on average against most creatures when they are restrained, and it would have 3 armor instead of just 2, so it would have more staying power. Since canine builds generally want to limit enemy mobility anyways since their own mobility is insufficient, most of them will probably be running tanglevines (and astral anchors once it's released) regardless.
Then again, summoning the giant wolf spider AND redclaw AND using the lair and a bow is too mana intensive and action intensive for a johktari beastmaster's opening. It might be better to just increase it's mana cost by 1 or 2 and give it both the animal subtype and the canine subtype.
Then again, all of the creatures that have a subtype associated with animals as well as another non-animal subtype, never have the animal subtype on top of that. This includes Cerberus, deathfang, werewolf pet, stonegaze basilisk, etc. Of course, none of those creatures are nature school, so maybe there wouldn't be any thematic issue with it.
Another option for balancing the addition of the canine subtype and possibly the animal subtype too would be some combination of two or more of these: lowering its mana cost, lowering its armor/life, removing the psychic immunity or making it a quick action to cast.
Why is giant wolf spider psychic immune anyway? None of the other canines are psychic immune except for deathfang, and the only other insect in the game, tataree, is not psychic immune.
I really think it might be worth getting Giant Wolf Spider some kind of errata to have the canine subtype.
Considering that it currently barely sees play anyways, it might be good enough to just add the canine subtype without changing anything else, and then to have more canine-specific support spells that are less mana expensive than redclaw released later.
Thank you for your consideration.
