You can set whether or not to show product thumbnails on your homepage by using the Show Products feature on your home/index page. You can choose New, Featured, Sale, Random, a listing of main Categories ( single column ) or No Display
To do this in your Storeadmin, click on Web Site, then Pages - then click to Edit your Home ( or index ) Page
Scroll down to the bottom to the Show Products field, choose from the drop down, then click Update
