Excluding previous entries
I'd probably try is something like this:

&lt;div class="row small-up-1 medium-up-2"&gt;
    {# Grab all (8) stories in a random order #}
    {% set allStories = craft.entries.section('work').type('projects').order('RAND()').find() %}

    {# Now loop through only the first two items in the array #}
    {% for entry in allStories|slice(0, 2) %}
        &lt;— stuff —&gt;
    {% endfor %}
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class="row small-up-2 medium-up-3"&gt;
    {# Now loop through items 3-8 in the array. #}
    {% for entry in allStories|slice(2, 6) %}
        &lt;— stuff —&gt;
    {% endfor %}
&lt;/div&gt;


Documentation for the Twig slice() method can be found here: https://twig.sensiolabs.org/doc/2.x/filters/slice.html