I could be wrong, but I believe you at least need the NIC. It also may have to be plugged into something (a hub) and have a link light. But you should be able to network the Linux guest with the windows host without having any other computers on the network. Actually, I don't believe the card would have to be plugged in to anything but I am not sure.
The only way I can think of that would allow you to network the two without a network card is if you could use your loopback device as a network card. Might want to search VMware's site or google to see if it is possible.
[ November 08, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]