I am having dificulty assigning a template the the Posts Page. I have the base outline that I use for all regular content then I created a Blog layout so I could configure a sidebar and other options.
I'll outline my steps.
1. create a page named blog
2. assing blog as the posts page in wordpress reading settings
3. create new layout with sidebar
4. assign layout to blog and all other blog realted pages like categories, single post, terms, etc...
While the blog posts themselves have the template assigned the posts page retains the basse outline