Custom Home Page Blog

Hopefully folks still look at this ??

I have a weird situation where I’d like to have my home page feature my latest posts but only posts with a specific category. The rest of the posts I’d like to go to a separate blog page. I assumed this would be easy by setting a static home page and then creating a custom page type for that home page, however, it appears that Ward has specific guidelines already set for a home page that over-rule the page type.

I’d like to do this sans-plugin. Don’t mind getting my hands dirty as I’m pretty familiar with PHP and child themes but if that’s the easiest way I understand. I have tried the Display Posts shortcode plugin but I really want to leverage Bootstrap better which is tough with shortcodes.

Thanks!