And this is where having a strong base knowledge of networking principals is required in order to be a decent pen tester.  Most of the time I spend more time figuring out how to get my lab setup than actually doing the lab itself.  Then again once it is setup, it is pretty easy from there.  I also tend to keep notepad++ or gedit running so I can toss notes in there.  Though I may start to use Growly notes for that.

As for De-Ice... from what I remember, you need to set you IP on the attacker to match the subnet of the De-Ice box.  Also make sure you don't use the same IP as the target De-Ice VM.