Struggling with syntax for brute force mask

[marshedpotato]

i think you are looking more for combinator attack + rules, if you really want to use mask -> maskfile you have to generate a really huge maskfile like this

maskfiles work linebased, each line is one mask 4 customcharset possible, devided by , so
CS1,MASK
?l?u?d,?1review
means prepend 1 lower or upper or digit before review
?l?u?d,?1?1review
means prepend 2 lower or upper or digit (mixed) before review

just for review
maskfile

Code:

?l?u?d,?1review
?l?u?d,?1?1review
?l?u?d,?1?1?1review
?l?u?d,?1?1?1?1review

?l?u?d,review?1
?l?u?d,review?1?1
?l?u?d,review?1?1?1
?l?u?d,review?1?1?1?1

?l?u?d,?1Review
?l?u?d,?1?1Review
?l?u?d,?1?1?1Review
?l?u?d,?1?1?1?1Review

?l?u?d,Review?1
?l?u?d,Review?1?1
?l?u?d,Review?1?1?1
?l?u?d,Review?1?1?1?1

you will see this will be quite a really huge task to build up these maskfile, but you can use hashcat utils to help you a little

try the following
testdic (i assume no real mixing of upper lower inside one word, if you want this too, you have to add this)

Code:

review
Review
REVIEW
contract
Contract
CONTRACT
2018

combinator testdic testdic > testdic2
combinator3 testdic testdic testdic > testdic3

cat testdic testdic2 testdic3 > fulldic

this will give you all combinations from these words, with this list you could start building up your maskfile

i would use a good editor like sublime text where you can edit multiple lines (str+alt) in one step

or you can try fulldic with rules (this should be a fast run, so i would start with this anyway) -a0 -r dive.rule

thank you for taking the time to write this, you went into a lot more detail than i would have expected from someone on a free forum. i really appreciate it. you've certainly given me a point in the right direction and i'm going to experiment with your suggestions. thanks again!