limiting recent posts on homepage

I’d like my homepage to display less recent posts than the rest of the pages on my site. So I’d like to set the # posts that display in my category archives to 30, let’s say, but limit the number to 15 on my homepage. Here is the code from the main index template:

<!-- BEGIN recent posts -->
	<div class="cbox">
	<h2><?php fs_lang("Recent Articles"); ?></h2>
	<?php
	$wp_query = $tmp_query;
	if (have_posts()) : $count = 0;
	?>
	<ul>
	<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); $count++; ?>
	<li<?php if ($count==1) echo ' class="first"'; ?>>
		<a class="attachment" href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php fs_attachment_image($post->ID, 'thumbnail', 'alt="' . $post->post_title . '"'); ?></a>
		<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a>
		<p><?php echo fs_clean($post->post_excerpt, 177); ?>...</p>	</li>
	<?php endwhile; ?>
	</ul>
	<?php else: ?>
	<p><?php fs_lang("No articles."); ?></p>
	<?php endif; ?>
        <!-- END recent posts -->

Can anyone tell me how to limit the # posts here?

Thanks!

[moderated–bump removed. Please refrain from bumping as per Forum Rules]