If you're inexperienced it is highly recommended to play each biome in succession as designed by the developers.
1. Meadows
2. Black Forest
3. Swamp
4. Mountains
5. Plains
6. Mistlands
7. ?

So, yes, you can venture into plains with iron, but you need to be extra careful and vigilant not to die there quickly. If you really want to do that, I recommend using the root armor chest for its very good pierce protection. Good against deathsquitos and fuling lance throwers.

Wolves are fairly easy to handle with an atgeir (even the bronze one will do) due to its long reach and the almost OP secondary attack.

When dealing with one wolf, you can easily poke it to death quickly, before it can even reach you. When dealing with two (or worse more), you need to employ the secondary attack to devastating effect, throwing all enemies around you back and stunning them.

You can then deal with them much more easily.