It is impossibe to actually tally the number of people who died because of this man, but he can be considered a plague. He was born in relative obscurity and rose to power by whacking everyone in his way. His goal was to restore to greatness, the former empire of Genghis Khan. He conquered the lands from Northern Russia, to the Mediterranean, to India, with an army of 100,000, he took on Russians, Persians, Ottomans, Georgians, Mesopotamians, Armenians and Indians. But, there were no cultural exchanges or trades. He wiped-out everybody in his path: men, women and children. He took anything of value and burned everything else. In 1398, he made his move on India, where he stayed long enough to destroy everything that could not be returned to his seat of power. He captured 100,000 Indian soldiers, who all met the sword. Destruction was so complete, that it took over 100 years for New Delhi to rebuild itself. He had no real plan to build an empire...just to destroy everyone else's. His death was timely for the Chinese, as a full-blown attack of China was being planned. He struck such fear in other cultures that the Sultan of Egypt and Byzantine emperor, John I, made "contributions" to Tamerlane, in hopes of being spared his scourge. Tamerlane is a textbook study for all future dictators bent on conquest.

The kind of savage barbarian nomad that gives people like Genghis and Attila a bad name.

Tamerlane (Timur the Lame) had no interest in anything but conquest, loot, and slaughter, and built no infrastructure, preferring to butcher the educated (and anyone else handy) leaving piles of skulls to mark his victories.

While he clearly had ability to unite and lead his hordes of horsemen, his ability as a strategic military leader is questionable.

None of his conquests survived his death.

Tamerlane (Timur the Lame) was the last of the great barbarian/nomad warlords. Uniting the Turkish tribes of central Asia under his command, he conquered most of the Middle East and Northern India. He succeeded in destroying much of the infrastructure and educated population of the Middle East (just 100 years after the Mongol invasions) leaving behind him minarets (prayer towers) of human skulls and other grisly reminders of conquest. Since he failed to provide for his succession, his empire fell apart shortly after his death, eventually being divided between the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires.
While he excelled in the art of war, Tamerlane's failure to create any kind of stable administrative structure for he empire he conquered has tarnished his reputation. Much of the fatalism and backwardness of the modern Middle East is due to the brutal, short-lived conquests of Tamerlane.

Even though Tamerlane never successfully invaded Ming China, his threat to do so had a profound impact there. Proving that he had awesome military prowess.